Motor Matt's Reverse; or, Caught in a Losing Cause

by Stanley R. Matthews

The look of relief that came into the sufferer's face was apparent, but neither the captain nor the other members of the pirate crew, who had gathered round to watch, made any comment. Curtin carefully dressed and bandaged the wound, and as soon as he had finished, his hands were rebound. His patient moved away without a word of thanks or appreciation, yet the doctor did not neglect to say that as often as was necessary he would attend the arm again. He was anxious to make a friend of this Chinaman; for a friend, he felt, would not be a bad thing to have among that barbarous crew.

Shortly after sunset that evening the junk reached the mouth of a narrow river, and a quarter of a mile from the entrance to this stream the sails were lowered and anchor was dropped. Curtin gathered from the talk of some of the crew who stood near him that the junk was to be taken up this river to an outlaw retreat, but that they would not enter the narrow channel until the high tide of the next morning.

Not long after the evening meal was over the pirates began to turn in for the night. Most of them merely threw themselves down on the hard deck. By nine o'clock all were asleep, with the exception of a single watchman, whom Curtin could see strolling back and forth across the afterdeck.

Hours passed, and as the doctor lay outstretched on the bare deck, he tried to work his hands out of the hempen cord that bound them together behind his back. He thought that if he could free himself from his bonds, the watchman might nap, and thus give him opportunity to slip over the side of the vessel into the sea and swim ashore. But he was unable to release his hands.

Not long after this, the watchman came forward and silently passed close to Curtin, and he was rather surprised to see that the lone guard was no other than the man whose arm he had lanced that morning. He wondered idly if the fellow had been chosen for the post of watchman for the reason that suffering had rendered him sleepless.

Then suddenly, as he looked up at the big yellow man, a new idea for escape germinated, grew to a hazy outline, and in a moment took definite shape in Curtin's mind.

In his medicine case was a vial containing a quantity of a certain very powerful anæsthetic. He had told the pirate that he would dress the wound again when necessary. If on this excuse he could get his hands freed and the case in his possession, why would it not be easy to administer a few drops of the drug by a hypodermic injection, and almost immediately send the watchman into a coma that would last for hours—render him unconscious before he could rebind his captive's hands or think to make outcry?

Curtin fully realized the danger attendant upon so audacious a scheme. But he felt that as long as he was in the hands of these ruthless and merciless men his life was not safe from one hour to the next.

Immediately he hailed the watchman and asked him about his arm. The tall pirate paused and replied that it still pained him considerably. Curtin suggested that he should bring the medicine case and have his arm treated there in the bright moonlight.

The watchman was slow in answering. Curtin began to think that the natural craftiness of his race had counseled him against the proposition, when with a gesture of consent he went to the companionway and disappeared. In a few moments he came back, carrying the familiar case in his hand. Then the doctor's heart gave a joyous leap.