Telling them that, although he was no doctor, he was sure that it was most important that the splinter of bone should be removed, he offered to attempt it. The fractured collar-bone, he assured them, would knit of itself if the patient kept quiet.
In those days the medicine chests of even fine ships like the Esmeralda were but poorly equipped, when contrasted with those to be found on much smaller vessels thirty years later, when antiseptic surgery and anæsthetics were beginning to be understood. But Almanza, who was in agony, begged the visitor to do what he could; and without further hesitation, Frewen took from the medicine chest what he considered was the most suitable knife, made an incision, and in less than five minutes had the splintered piece of bone out. Then came the agonising but effective sailor's styptic—cotton wool soaked in Friar's Balsam.
Almanza tried to murmur his thanks, but feinted, and when he came to again, he found himself much freer from pain, and the poor negro steward's successor standing beside him with a tumbler of wine and water.
“You must keep very quiet,” said Frewen, as he turned to leave the room, speaking coldly, for although he was very sympathetic with any one suffering pain, he could not but remember what the man before him had done.
Returning on deck, he found Foster and Ryan talking on the poop, whilst the crew of Chilenos were sitting about on the hatches eating pineapples and bananas, and drinking coconuts. Even a non-seafaring man would have thought that there was a lack of discipline displayed, but Frewen, whose life had been spent on whaleships where the slightest liberty on the part of foc'sle hands towards the after-guard meets with swift and stern punishment, felt as if he would have liked to have kicked them all in turn, and then collectively.
“Never mind,” he thought to himself, “I trust they are all reserved for higher things—they all deserve the gallows, and I sincerely trust they will get it.”
Both Ryan and Foster, he could see, had not the slightest doubt of his and Raymond's bona-fides, and at supper both men were extremely affable to him. At the same time he thought he could perceive that they were anxious as to what had become of the captain's boat, for they asked him casually if there was any shipping at Apia, or at any of the other ports in the group.
“Only the usual local trading vessels,” he replied. “Whenever a stranger comes in—even if it is only a native craft—I get the news at my place by runners in an hour or two.”
And Almanza's mind, too, was at rest, for when he was groaning in agony in his bank, and he was told that a boat from the shore was coming alongside, he had started up and reached for his pistols. But Ryan had satisfied him completely.
“We could have shot every one of them before the boat came alongside, had we wanted to, amigo,” he said.