ill. No wonder he has got his wound in such a state if he has, as you

say, aided to carry her down all that distance. He must have had a brush with the negroes."

"That must have been before he started, sir; for he said that the bandage shifted, so his wound must have been bound up before he set out."

"It was a gallant thing for a lad to undertake--a most gallant action! Why, it must have been torture to him."

"It must indeed, sir."

"He is not in any danger, I hope?"

"Not unless fever intervenes, sir. No doubt with rest and quiet and the use of ice we shall succeed in reducing the inflammation; but it is likely enough that fever may set in, and if so there is no saying how it may go. I shall be glad to have Doctor Bemish back again to take the responsibility off my hands."

Late that afternoon Monsieur Duchesne came on board to thank Nat. He was not allowed to see him, as the doctor said that absolute quiet was indispensable. He had had a full account from Myra of the adventures through which the little party had gone, and he retailed this to the lieutenant and doctor in the ward-room.

"A most gallant business altogether," the first lieutenant said when he had finished, "and certainly the most gallant part of it was undertaking to carry Madame Duchesne when practically disabled. But I can understand, as you say, that directly the negroes were defeated by the force that went out against them, some of them would have made for that cave, and it was therefore absolutely necessary to get away before they came. However, I hope that we need not be anxious about him; he has gone through three or four scrapes, any of which might have been fatal. There was that fight with the dog; then he was in the thick of that business with the pirates, and was blown up by the explosion, and half his crew killed. He has had some marvellous escapes, and I think we may feel very hopeful that he will get over this without serious trouble. It was lucky indeed his finding your family jewels on two of those scoundrels that he shot."

"It would have been a great loss, but it is such a little thing in comparison to the saving of my wife and daughter, that I have scarcely given it a thought. I shall do myself the pleasure of calling again to-morrow morning to know how he is."

"Do so, monsieur; you will probably find Captain Crosbie here. I had a note from him an hour ago, saying that he was returning, and would be here by eight o'clock. The negroes having been defeated, and the safety of the town being ensured for a while, he does not consider that he would be justified in joining in the pursuit of the blacks among the hills."

Nat was not aware of the return of the landing-party until the next morning, when on opening his eyes he saw Dr. Bemish by his side.

"You young scamp," the latter said, shaking his finger at him, "you seem determined to be a permanent patient. As soon as you recover from one injury you are laid up with another. So here you are again."

"It is only a trifle this time, doctor."

"Umph, I am not so sure about that. Macfarlane tells me that, not content with getting a rib broken, you go about carrying one end of a stretcher with a woman on it across ground where it was difficult, if not impossible, to move without ricking and hurting yourself. So that not only have you set up a tremendous amount of inflammation round the wound, but you have so worn the ends of the bone that they will take three times as long knitting together as they would have done had they been left alone."

"I am afraid that is all true, doctor," Nat replied with a smile; "but, you see, I thought it better to run the risk of inflammation, and even this terrible rubbing of the end of the bones you speak of, than of being caught by these fiendish negroes, and put to death by the hideous tortures with which they have in many cases slowly murdered those who fell into their hands."

"It must have hurt you badly," Dr. Bemish said, as, after removing the dressing that had, late the evening before, been substituted for the ice, he examined the wound.

"It did hurt a bit, doctor, but as four lives depended upon my being able to hold on, there was nothing for it but to set one's teeth hard and keep at it. How does it look this morning?"

"What do you think, Macfarlane? you can form a better opinion than I can, as I have not seen it before."

"The inflammation seems to have abated a good deal."

"In any case we will syringe the wound thoroughly with warm water. There are doubtless some particles of bone in it, and until these are got rid of we can't hope that it will heal properly. I will get that large magnifying-glass from my cabin."

For half an hour the wound was fomented and washed.

"As far as I can see it is perfectly clean now," Dr. Bemish said, after carefully examining it with the glass. "We will put a compress on, with a wet cloth over it, which must be damped with iced water every half-hour. When we quite get the inflammation down, Glover, which will, I hope, be in two or three days, we will bandage it tightly, and I will buy you a pair of stays on shore, and lace you up so that there shall be no chance of your performing any more pranks with it, and then I fancy you will be able to come up on deck, if you will promise to keep yourself quiet there."

"Well, that is better than I expected, doctor."

"Have you any message to send to your friends? because I am going ashore now to see them. Monsieur Duchesne was off yesterday afternoon, but Macfarlane very properly refused to let him see you."

"Tell him he can't see me for some days, doctor. I do so hate being made a fuss over."

"I will keep him away for a day or two anyhow," the doctor laughed. "He gave the ward-room a full history of your affair, so you won't have the trouble of going over it again."

"That is a comfort," Nat growled. "How long is the _Orpheus_ likely to stop here, doctor?"

"Ah, that is more than I can say! At any rate the captain will not leave until he gets orders from Jamaica. The _Æolus_ has just come into port, and the captain will send her off at once with despatches to the admiral, saying what has taken place, and how he landed a force to protect the town, and went out with a party to attack the insurgent blacks. He will ask for instructions, as they have no French vessel of war here, and the land force is insufficient to defend the place if attacked in earnest, especially as there is a considerable negro population who would probably rise and join the insurgents if these made an assault upon the town. The general hope on board is that we shall get orders to stay here, or at least to cruise on the coast. Now that we have broken up that nest of pirates, things are likely to be dull here for some time, though I have little doubt that ere very long we shall be at war with the French. According to the last news, which arrived since you left us, that National Assembly of theirs is going farther and farther, and its proceedings are causing serious alarm throughout Europe, for they are altogether subversive of the existing state of things. It is to its measures that this terrible insurrection here is due, and the first consequence of what is really a revolution in France will be the loss of her most valuable colony. I suppose you have heard that something like two thousand whites have been murdered. I have no doubt that now they have recovered from the first shock, the French here will take a terrible vengeance; but though they may kill a great number of the negroes, I doubt if it will be possible to reduce half a million blacks to submission, especially in an island like this, with mountain ranges running through it where cannon would be absolutely useless, and the negroes could shelter in the almost impenetrable forests that cover a large portion of it."