e
that A.B. Titely was placed where he could lie down and rest, and while
looking after the poor fellow, and seeing that he was one of the first
to be helped into the stern sheets of the first cutter, Roberts came up.

"Oh, I say!" he cried. "Who's that wounded?"

"Hallo! Who are you?" said his fellow middy sharply. "Don't disturb
the poor fellow."

"Why, eh? Yes--no," cried Roberts, with a mock display of interest, "I
was wondering where--well--it can't be! Why, Frank, you do look a
pretty sweep! Hardly knew you. I say: is it you?"

"Is it I, indeed!" growled Murray. "You're a pretty fellow to try that
on! Go and look at your face in the water if you can find a still pool.
I might grin at you."

"Am I browned, then--scorched?"

"Are you scorched brown! No, you are scorched black! Where are your
eyebrows? I say, Dick, those two little patches of hair in front of
your ears that you believed were whiskers beginning to shoot--they're
quite gone. No, not quite; there's a tiny bit left in front of your
right ear."

The conscious lad clapped his hands up to the sides of his face.

"I say, not so bad as that, is it, Frank? No games; tell us the truth."

"Games? No, I'm too sore to be making game," cried Murray, and he gazed
carefully at both sides of his messmate's cheeks. "You're scorched
horribly, and the whisker shoots are all gone--No, there's about half of
one left; and you'll have to shave that off, Dick, so as to balance the
other bare place. No, no; it's all right; that's not hair, only a
smudge of sooty cinder off your burnt cap. I say, you do look a beauty,
Dick."

"Oh, I say!" groaned the youth, patting his tingling cheeks
tenderly.--"Here, what are you grinning at, sir?" he cried, turning upon
the wounded sailor angrily.

"Beg pardon, sir. Was I grinning?" said the sailor apologetically.

"Yes; and he can't help it, Dick. Don't be hard upon the poor fellow;
he has had a spear through the top of his shoulder. But you do look an
object! Enough to make a cat laugh, as they say."

"Well, I don't see that there's anything to laugh at."

"No, old fellow, because you can't see your face; but I say, you can see
mine."

"Humph!" grunted Roberts sulkily, and his fingers stole up to pat the
scorched portions of his face.

"Case of pot and kettle, eh, Dick?" said Murray, laughing, then pulling
his face straight again as he winced with pain. "Oh, I say, don't make
me grin at you again