ou must allow me to prescribe something for your complaint.
Here, boy," he added, hailing one of his crew, "fetch Skipper Fox a
draught o' that physic--the brown stuff that you keep in the kettle."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered a youthful voice, and in another minute Pat
Stiver forced his way through the crowd, bearing in his hand a large cup
or bowl of coffee.

"It's not exactly the tipple I'm used to," said Fox, accepting the cup
with a grin, and wisely resolving to make the best of circumstances, all
the more readily that he observed other visitors had been, or still
were, enjoying the same beverage. "Howsever, it's not to be expected
that sick men shall have their physic exactly to their likin', so I
thank 'ee all the same, Dr Martin!"

This reply was received with much approval, and the character of Groggy
Fox immediately experienced a considerable rise in the estimation of his
comrades of the fleet.

Attention was drawn from him just then by the approach of another boat.

"There is some genuine surgeon's work coming to you in that boat, Fred,
if I mistake not," remarked Stephen Lockley, as he stood beside his old
friend.

"Hasn't that man in the stern got his head tied up?"

"Looks like it."

"By the way, what of your uncle, Dick Martin?" asked the Admiral. "It
was you that picked him up, wasn't it?"

This reference to the sad event which had occurred that morning
solemnised the fishermen assembled on the _Sunbeam's_ deck, and they
stood listening with sympathetic expressions as Fred narrated what he
had seen of the catastrophe, and told that his uncle was evidently
nothing the worse of it, and was lying asleep in the cabin, where
everything had been done for his recovery and comfort.

In the boat which soon came alongside was a fisherman who had met with a
bad accident some days before. A block tackle from aloft had fallen on
his head and cut it severely. His mates had bound it up in
rough-and-ready fashion; but the wound had bled freely, and the clotted
blood still hung about his hair. Latterly the wound had festered, and
gave him agonising pain. His comrades being utterly ignorant as to the
proper treatment, could do nothing for him. Indeed, the only effectual
thing that could be done was to send the poor man home. This sudden and
unexpected appearance of one of the mission ships was therefore hailed
as a godsend, for it was well-known that these vessels contained
medicines, and it was believed t