w should I know?" said the mate, roughly. "It was an arrow; I've
taken it out, bathed the wound, and what you have to do, is to lie
still, and not worry yourself into a fever by fancying all kinds of
horrors."

"But these men poison their arrows, do they not?"

"People say so," said the mate, bluffly, "but it doesn't follow that
they do. Now, then, I've got to attend to Mr Lane. You've had your
turn."

He bent down over Oliver, and began to remove the bandage which Smith
had passed round the upper part of the young man's left arm.

"Thank goodness it isn't in the body," said the mate. "I thought it was
at first."

"No, sir," said Smith. "He was all wet about his chest, and I thought
he'd got it somewhere there, but it's a nice, neat hole right through
his arm, and here's the bullet which tumbled out of the sleeve of his
jacket."

He handed the little piece of lead to the mate, who took it quickly,
held it to the lamp and then drawing his breath sharply between his
teeth, he slipped the bullet into his pocket before slitting up Oliver's
sleeve, and examining a couple of ruddy orifices in the upper part of
his arm.

"Hurt you much, sir?" he said, cheerfully.

"Hurt?" cried Oliver, angrily. "Why, it throbs and stings horribly."

"So I s'pose. But you mustn't think that this is poisoned. No fear of
that."

"I did not think so," said Oliver, shortly. "I wish I knew who it was
that fired at me."

"Well," said the mate, drily, as he bathed the two wounds where the
bullet had entered and passed out right through the thickest part of the
arm, carefully using fresh water and sponge, "I don't think that would
help the places to heal."

"No--ah! you hurt! Mr Rimmer, what are you doing?"

"I was trying to find out whether the bone was injured."

"Is it broken?" said Oliver, who was wincing with pain.

"No, the bullet never touched it, sir. There's only a nice clean tunnel
through your flesh to heal up."

"Nice clean tunnel, indeed!" said Oliver, whose deadly faintness was
giving way to irritability, caused by the sharp pain. "I only, as I
said before, wish I knew who shot me. How could a man be so stupid?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said the mate, as he softly dried the wounds.
"If people come rushing out of a fog in company with a lot of yelling
savages, they can't expect other people to know the difference. The
fact is, my lad, I fired that shot, for it was a bullet out of the
captain's gun."

"