deal, looking sharply from Carey
towards the cabin entry and back.

"Mumkull ebberbody. Shoot, bang."

"Let him shoot me then if he dares," cried Carey, in a fit of
desperation, and the two blacks looked at him with horror and admiration
as the boy bent down over the hatch, pulled out an iron bolt thrust
through the staple, and threw open the heavy lid of wood; but all was
still below.

"Bob! Are you there?" cried Carey, for there was a chilling silence
below.

"Ay, ay!" came in half-smothered tones, and this was followed by the
sound of someone turning out of a bunk. The next minute Bostock's
bloodstained face appeared, with a tremendous swelling on the brow, the
result evidently of a blow given with marlin-spike or club.

"Bob!" cried Carey, wildly, as he caught the old sailor's hand.

"Master Carey!" cried the injured man, stumbling out as if giddy. "This
is a good sight, dear boy."

"Which of the blacks struck you that cowardly blow?"

"Nay, nay, it warn't one of the black fellows, my lad, but Old King Cole
himself."

"But how? why--what for?"

"Don't you puzzle a chap with too many questions at once, my lad, for my
head's a bit swimming."

"Oh, Bob, my poor fellow! Here, Jackum, a bucket of water to bathe his
head."

"Bucketum waterum? Iss!" cried the black, darting off, and Bostock
seated himself on an upturned barrel.

"Let's see," he said; "how was it? I forgot, sir."

"Never mind that, then. Where's the doctor?"

"The doctor, sir?" faltered the old fellow, to Carey's agony, "I dunno.
Ah, I 'member now. Comes to me in the galley, he does."

"The doctor?"

"No, sir; Old King Cole. `Come here,' he says, `and get me something
out o' the forecastle.' I goes with him, gets to the hatch, and he
says, `Fetch me up that noo axe as is down there.' `Right, sir,' I
says, and I'd got down three steps when I sees his shadder across me as
if he was lifting something, and I turns sharply to see a club in his
hand just lifted up. I shies and dodges, but I was too late; down it
comes dump on my forrid, and I dropped down into the forecastle."

"Bob!" cried Carey.

"That's true enough, sir, and then I seemed to go to sleep with every
idee knocked out o' me. I just recklect thinking I should be better in
a bunk, and I lay there dreaming like till you calls me, and that woke
me up. What's o'clock, sir?"

"Time we bestirred ourselves, Bob, to find the doctor. Bob, he must
have served poor