It makes me shudder now. There was an awful gash on his back, extending from his right shoulder to below the ribs on the right side. It was roughly sewn up here and there, and seemed to be healing, but the blow on the chest had made it bleed anew; a dark stream was soaking down his leg to the ground.
"By heaven! that is a terrible cut," said the Captain; "how in thunder did you get mauled like that?"
Carl, who was still very faint, told us that some time ago he had a fight with a native, and licked him. One night, as he was lying face downward on his mat, this man crept into his hut and struck him with a shark tooth sword. His native wife, who was coming into the house at the time, carrying two shells of toddy, dropped them, and flinging her arms round the man's legs, tripped him up, and held him, while Carl, all smothered in blood, shot him dead with his revolver.
"Ned!" said the Captain gravely, when Carl's tale was told, "did you know this young fellow had this gash in his back when you hove the bag at him?"
"Of course I did! why, d—n him, can't he take a joke? Naura's a rough shop for a man that can't stand a bit of fun."
"Put up your hands, you cowardly dog!" said the Captain, and in an instant the drunken traders cleared a space. "I'll teach you to hurt a wounded man."
Ned was as big a man as the Captain, and seemed to be the leading spirit of the gang. But the other traders, though armed with navy revolvers and derringers, did not seem inclined to interfere.
At the first round the big trader went down like a bullock, and lay on the cabin floor apparently lifeless. Hayston was like a mad animal when he tried to get him up, and the man fell helpless. Picking him up in his arms like a child, he carried him on deck, the rest of us following.
"Here! Naura men, where's Ned's boat?" he called out.
It was towing astern, and some one having hauled it up, Hayston dropped the man into it like a log of wood.