im and Swainson out of No. 1 boat'--These were the two
injured men: Abercrombie, our Chief Engineer, by far the worst
burnt--'I doubt if he'll last till morning: but we've been friends
from boys, Jock and me, and if you can do aught, sir, to make his
passing easier--'

"I asked him to wait while I fetched my medicine-chest, and was
transhipped with it into the captain's boat. They had laid
Abercrombie in the stern-sheets, with the stoker Swainson beside him.
Abercrombie's plight was hopeless; flesh of chest and arms all
red-raw from the scorching, and the man palpably dying from shock.

"'I had him into my boat, sir,' Macnaughten explained gravely,
'because we'd shipped the ladies--all but Mrs. Farrell--in No. 1, and
I don't want 'em to be distressed more than necessary. . . . A man
can't think of everything all in five minutes, but I got him out of
it, soon as I could. There's no hope, think you?'

"'Between you and me, none,' said I, sinking my voice.

"'That's what I reckoned,' said the skipper, with just a nod of his
head. He had taken the tiller and sent all the crew, saving four men
rowing, forward whilst I examined the patients. 'Jock wouldn't be
one to let out a groan if he knew there were women by to be scared by
it. . . . Also, Doctor, if he's dying, I'd like to be handy by, if
you understand. I got him this berth. We were friends, always.'

"I found some cotton-wool and a tin of vaseline, and coated the poor
man's hurts as well as I could. Then, as he still groaned, though
more feebly, I got out my phial of morphia and a needle. As I held
the bottle against a sort of binnacle-light by which Macnaughten sat
steering, I caught his eyes staring down on me, quiet and solemn.
I tell you, that man was a man, Roddy.

"'Yes, I know, Doctor,' he said quietly. 'You're calculating how
much there is of it, and how you may have to use it before we're
through. . . . What about Swainson?'

"'He'll pull around,' said I. 'The vaseline will ease three-fourths
of his trouble within ten minutes.'

"'Keep your voice low,' said the skipper, 'as I'm keeping mine.'
He bent forward, pretending to consult the compass. 'I've sent all
these fellows forward, though they put her down by the head so that
it's like steering a monkey by the tail. . . . Now I reckon that
you'll be wishful to go back to-morrow, or as soon as may be, and
join your party. That's so?'

"'That's so,' said I, as I finished the injection and t