It would be a work of supererogation to tell you of the long hours which followed immediately upon my assumption of the rôle of ship’s doctor. I passed through them as one passes through a dreamland of restless thoughts. There were no fewer than thirty-one wounded men upon the steamer; and, of these, seven belonged to the fo’castle party, twenty-four to the saloons. The latter chained my interests in spite of their condition, for there were Englishmen among them, and faces that the stories of recent crimes had made familiar to me. One lad, slashed heavily across the forehead by a clasp knife, had been mentioned, I remembered, in connection with the famous forgeries upon the Bank of England some five years ago. I recognised the Italian jewel thief, Detucchi, the German forger, Urich, the young Belgian, Monterry, supposed to be serving a sentence of penal servitude for life for his attack upon King Leopold. Happily, few of these men had been wounded by rifle bullets. Those whom the guns had killed fell upon the instant and their bodies were already in the sea. My patients were the victims of cuts, fearful gashes in some cases, and difficult fractures in others. Two died while I tried to help them. It was a woeful task, and I trust that I may never be called to its fellow.
The honest men, happily, for so I called the sailors of the ship, had suffered considerably less. I found them profoundly grateful for such services as I could render them; nor did the American hesitate to tell me frankly the story of the mutiny.
“We were making for Rio, but Mr. Ross stood out,” he said. “A relief’s expected, and I guess there are some law-sick folk on board her. He treated us like dirt, and began to talk of rafting. Do you know what rafting is, doctor—no, well, it’s putting living men overboard on a raft as big as a deal board and wishing ’em good luck while they go. Don’t try it while you can sail saloon. Colin Ross fell sick of a fever and is down below raving now. We got the arms by tickling the mate’s whiskers and promising him Ross’s berth. That was the first and the last of it. We shot ’em down like sheep, and now we’re going ashore to spend our money—those that live, though they’re like to be few enough.”
Here was a truth beyond all question. I stood on the deck of a veritable plague ship. A wail of death rose unceasingly. Night had come down, and a thick white mist enveloped the ocean all about us. The yacht was nowhere to be seen. Of all the hours of that great endeavour, this, to me, was the most terrible, alike in its menace and its suggestion.
For I said that the yacht might lose me in the fog and leave me, the prisoner of these desperate men, and their hostage against the justice which awaited them.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE BRIDGE AND AFTERWARDS.
Dr. Fabos Visits Colin Ross.
I was in a situation of grave peril; but it would have been imprudent beyond measure to have admitted it. Possibly the accident of their advantage did not occur to the men, nor had they discovered it. There was no order on the ship, no commander, no person in authority above others. The agony of wounds forbade any consideration of that which should be done or of the methods of doing it. I perceived that the men regarded me in some sense as their good angel, paying me the compliment of trusting me, and obeying my commands as faithfully as if I had been their captain. They could even remember that I had gone fasting, and speak of food and drink.
“Old Valentine knew a good tap when he tasted it, and there’s plenty of the right sort on board,” the American said to me good-naturedly. “You only give a name to it and the corks will be flying like rockets. Ask for what you’re wanting, doctor, and I’ll skin the lubber who doesn’t run to fetch it. The Lord knows what my mates would have done if you hadn’t come among them.”