red
the shot, and the captain complimented him in no measured terms. Marcy
could not help acknowledging to himself that their escape was owing
entirely to the prompt action the mate had taken without waiting for
orders; but all the same he was sorry for that Federal officer.

Less than an hour's run sufficed to take the schooner out of the Inlet
and into the Sound, and when Beardsley had given out the course and seen
the sails trimmed to suit it, he went into his cabin, from which he
presently issued to pass the word for Marcy Gray. When the boy descended
the ladder he found the first mate and two foremast hands there besides
the captain; and on the table he saw two pieces of thin board, and
several strips of cloth that had evidently been torn up for bandages. He
noticed, too, that the atmosphere was filled with the odor of liniment.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, in some alarm.

"We're going to set that--that--what-do-you-call-it of your'n," replied
the captain cheerfully. The name that Marcy had given to the bone of his
upper arm was too much for Mm. He could not remember it.

The boy knew that all sea captains have more or less knowledge of
medicine and surgery. It is necessary that they should have, for sailors
are often seized with illness, or meet with serious accidents when their
ship is at sea, and so far from a doctor that without immediate aid from
some source they would surely lose their lives. Marcy had read of a
whaling captain, one of whose men was jerked overboard from his boat by
a wounded whale, dragged for six hundred feet or more through the water
with frightful speed, and who was finally released by his leg giving way
to the strain. The captain saw that that leg must be attended to or the
man would die. His crew were too badly frightened to help him, so he
amputated the injured member himself; and all the surgical instruments
his ship afforded were a carving-knife, a carpenter's saw, and a
fish-hook. But he saved the man's life. Marcy thought of this and
shuddered at the thought of submitting himself to Beardsley's rude
surgery.

"I believe I would rather wait until we get to Newbern," said he
doubtfully.

"Why, man alive, we may not see port for a week," answered the captain.
"How do we know but what there are a dozen or more steam launches, like
the one we've just left astern, loafing about in the Sound waiting for
us? If there are, we'll have to get shet of 'em somehow, and that will