"The boy is bruised and scratched from head to foot," said the master of the tug, Captain Jim's cousin. "We'd better sponge him down with hot water and arnica. He must have had a tougher time of it than most grown men could live through, Jim. See here, these are fresh burns on his hands. Now, where did he get those?"
"The Lord only knows," said Captain Jim as he patted Dan's flushed cheek. "Don't pester him with questions now. He's got some fever and his eyes look bad to me. I'm going to leave McKnight on the wreck with some of my men to stand off any other kinky-headed pirates that may light on the Reef. And we're going to take this boy home to his mother as fast as you can poke this old hooker of yours into Key West."
Dan opened his eyes and smiled at Captain Jim who motioned him to be quiet. But Dan was already restless with fever and he had a hundred things to talk about if they would only stop whirling around in his head long enough to be laid hold of. He looked at his scorched fingers which were pecking at a corner of the blanket and said in a voice so weak that it sounded foolish to him:
"They tried to blow her up—to blow Jerry Pringle up—no, I don't mean that. It was 'Black Sam' Hurley—he lit the fuse, Uncle Jim—and I put it out—all alone down in the hold. You never saw such big rats—with sacks of powder tied to their tails—and eyes like sparks."
Captain Jim soothed Dan as best he could and whispered to his cousin:
"Did you get that? It's all true, I reckon. That's an old trick of the Bahama wrecking gangs. Ask Mr. Prentice to come in. The underwriters ought to be interested in the boy."
Mr. Prentice, the Florida agent of the English marine insurance companies, was a sharp-featured, elderly gentleman of few words. He had a great deal of confidence in Captain Wetherly's ability to handle such a bad business as a costly steamer high and dry on the Reef, but he was not prepared to hear such an astonishing tale as was whispered to him in the doorway of the captain's state-room.
"Mind you, we don't know a quarter of it yet," added Captain Jim. "But it looks as if you'll have to thank Dan Frazier, not me, for saving the steamer out yonder."
"U-m-m. Bless me, but it's most extraordinary," murmured Mr. Prentice. "I must go aboard at once and look for confirmation. It's a very unusual wreck, Captain Wetherly," and the underwriter's agent shot a keen glance from under his gray brows. "I shall be much interested in getting Captain Bruce's version. Jeremiah Pringle was off here, also, the night the Kenilworth went ashore, was he not? I understand you were in collision with him next day."