Martin and Miller were asleep—they evidently had had a jolly good meal—and presently a funny, jovial, fat old Chinaman came along and looked at my arm. He took my coat off and cut the sleeve of my flannel shirt, and the arm was a most horrid sight, absolutely all mottled purple from the elbow to the shoulder. He showed me two tiny holes, made a "poof" noise with his lips, darted his finger as if it was a bullet, and nodded at me kindly. Then I knew that it was a bullet that had broken the bone. He put on cotton wool and proper splints and proper bandages, and slung the arm up to my side and across my chest, under my shirt, and helped me on with my monkey jacket, and sewed my sleeve to the side. Really the old chap made me very comfortable.
He woke the others too, and did Martin's arm—the collar bone was broken—and cleaned Miller's head, and then went away, apparently quite honoured at being able to show his skill. I quite loved the old chap, and he made me so comfortable that I lay down, and when my head was quite still it did not throb so much, and I got in a jolly good sleep.
I woke and found the room quite dark, and Miller and Martin both snoring. My head was quite clear now, and I felt much stronger, groped about, and managed to get hold of that bowl of water, drank a little, and then propped myself up against the wall and wondered when that Englishman was going to take us away to Mr. Hobbs and Sally. It was so exciting to think that I should see them soon, that I really forgot that we were prisoners for some time; but then, after waiting and waiting, and hearing nothing except those snores, I began to feel frightened and miserable. I could think now without my head burning inside, and then I thought how I had muddled up all Captain Lester's plans, and "washed out" all that I had done for him. If I had only been man enough not to have minded Captain Marshall's chaff, I shouldn't be here, with my arm broken and a prisoner, and with Martin too; and I was so wretched, that I wished that I had been killed instead of Tuck, that marine whom I had seen fall and dig his nails into the ground. After all I had been longing to do, it had simply come to this, and I snivelled a little, in the dark, for there seemed to be nothing more worth living for.
Presently there was a loud boom a long way off, and almost directly afterwards, the sound of a very big shell bursting. That wasn't very near either, but I knew jolly well that nothing could make that noise except one of the Vigilant's eight-inch guns, and I could feel my head throbbing inside again with excitement, and wondered what was happening. Then more came, and other smaller ones, from quite a different direction. I had seen an opening in the wall—you couldn't call it a window—just outside the door, and I thought that perhaps the Chinaman would let me look out; so I groped round until I felt the door, and rapped on it with my knuckles. They didn't make much noise, and I kicked it with my feet, and then listened to hear if anyone moved; but there wasn't a sound.
I tried to shake the door, and it seemed to "give" towards me, and then to stick in the frame—I felt certain that the wooden beam was not in place—but I couldn't make it budge any more. I woke Miller, and he came across and got his fingers in a crack and pulled, and the door creaked and opened, almost knocking me down. We peered through the darkness and listened, and presently I could hear a clock ticking—it was that old clock I had seen in the Englishman's room.
"I'm going down," I whispered to Miller. "Help me off with my boots."
I got them off, felt that the revolver was still in my pocket, and began creeping down that spiral staircase, keeping to the outside and feeling the wall with my one hand. Every step creaked most horribly, and I waited, trembling, each time, but nothing happened, and then I had turned the corner and saw the bottom, and that some lamplight was coming out of that room.
"Are you all right, sir?" I heard Miller whisper; and I whispered back and felt braver, and got out the revolver and crept down. I couldn't hear the clock, because my heart was beating so horridly, but I got down to the door and looked in. There was a lamp burning on the writing-table, but not a soul there, and I went through, very softly, into the room where I had had that soup, and there was another lamp burning there, and any amount of food on the table. It looked as if someone had only just finished a meal—a book and a fork were lying on the floor, and the chair had been upset.
There was a dark place beyond, with a flickering light in it, as if a fire was burning; but I wasn't plucky enough to go in there, ran back to the foot of the stairs, and could just see Miller's scared face looking down. I beckoned to him to come down, and he did so, making an awful noise, and Martin came too. They got hold of one of the lamps, and I didn't mind going into the kitchen place then. It was quite empty; there was no one there. A funny-looking kettle hung over a small wooden fire, on a big flat stone, and was singing very quietly, and there was a saucepan full of cooked potatoes. They were quite warm, and I seized one and began to eat it. It was jolly good.
Miller and Martin were so hungry, that they forgot everything else, and ran back to the table and began "wolfing" food.