Chapter Seventeen.
Doctor and Patient.
“Faith, it’s moighty glad I am, sor, to say you at last!” cried Garry O’Neil, starting up from his seat at the cuddy table, on our ultimately reaching the saloon, where the Irish mate was having a rather late lunch with Mr Stokes, who had preceded us below. “I was jist comin’ after ye ag’in, colonel, whin I had snatched a bit mouthful to kape the divvil out of me stomach, sure. I want to inspict that game leg o’ yours, sor, now that I’ve sittled your poor f’ind’s h’id. Begorrah, colonel, somebody gave him a tidy rap on the skull whin they were about it!”
“It was done with a hand-spike,” explained the other, groaning with pain as we assisted him to a seat at the further end of the table, where the skipper’s armchair was drawn out for him to fix him up more comfortably. “One of those treacherous niggers came behind his back and dealt him a terrific blow that landed on the side of his head partly, nearly cutting his ear off!”
“Aye, I saw that, sor, of course,” put in Garry, pouring out some brandy into a tumbler which he proceeded to fill up with water—“aqua pura,” he called it. “I’ve shtrapped it on ag’in now, and it looks as nate as ninepins. But jist dhrink this, colonel, dear. It’ll warrm the cockles of your heart, sure, an’ put frish loife into you!”
The American took a sip first at the glass proffered him, and then drained off the contents with a deep sigh of satisfaction.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “I feel a little better. But how is poor Captain Alphonse now?”
“Bedad, he’s gitting on illegantly,” replied Garry, sniffing at a soup plate containing some steaming compound which Weston, the steward, had just brought in, and directing that worthy to place it in front of our poor invalid guest. “There was a nasty paice of bone sphlinter sticking in the crayture’s brainpan; but, first, I trepanned him an’ raymoved the impiddimint, an’ the poor chap’s now slayping as swately as a babby, slayping in the cap’en’s cot over yonder! But come, colonel, I want ye to take some of this pay soup here afore I set to work carving ye about. Begorrah, it’s foine stuff, an’ll set ye up a bit to roights!”
“Thank you a thousand times,” returned he, taking a mouthful or two of the soup which Weston had placed before him, eating very sparingly at first like one who had been deprived of food for some time. “I’m not afraid of your handling me, sir. I have undergone too many operations for that!”