essel followed, and the lad shrieked and gasped.
Instantly Ferrier saw what had happened.

"Help me to take his clothes off, Lennard."

They stripped the patient to the skin; then Ferrier glanced once,
touched just lightly enough to make the young man draw breath with a
whistling sound, then the deft, steady fingers ran carefully down, and
Lewis said--

"Tom, keep him as easy as you can till I come back from the yacht.
Skipper, you didn't think to strip him."

"No, sir; why?"

"Well, he has three ribs broken, that is all."

"Eh! he said he had a tumble agin the anchor in the breeze." "Yes, and
I cannot tell how his lung has escaped."

When Lewis returned he strapped the sufferer up like an artist, and then
said--

"Now, skipper, you must run home as soon as the trawl is up."

"Home! An' lose my woyage maybe?"

"Can't help that. You have no place for him here. See, he's off to sleep
now his pain's gone, but where will he be if the sea rises?"

The skipper groaned; it seemed hard. Lewis thought a little and said--

"Will you let me take him aboard of us now while it's smooth, and I'll
see if we can find you a man? If Larmor of the _Haughty Belle_ will
come, can you work with him?"

"Like a shot."

Larmor's jaw was better, and he said--

"I'd be a bad 'un if I wouldn't oblige you, sir, anyway. My jaw's main
sore, but I can do little things."

"You see, Lennard," quietly observed Lewis, after Larmor had gone, "I'm
making an experiment. If that lad had been left without such a mattress
as ours, he would have died, surely. And now I'll guarantee that I send
him back able to steer and do light work in ten days."

"That's where the hospital would come in. Well, you'll soon teach us
instead of us teaching you. Oh! surprising! oh-h-h! paralyzing! oh-h-h!
majestic! majestic!"

Tom was right in his exclamatory way, as we shall see by and by.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MISSION HALL.

And now you know what our people have been driving at all the time. I
have reported their talk, and we shall have very little space for more
of it, as the time must shortly come for swift action. From the moment
when Ferrier groaned with despair, a lightning thought shot into
Marion's brain and settled there. She had a grand idea, and she was
almost eager to get ashore: one indefinite attraction alone held her.
Ferrier was almost as eager to return, for his electric nature was
chafed by the limitations that bound him; he knew