king.

"Well, then, if they will not, we must give them another lesson, and
another if it comes to that. We're all right now in our bit of a fort,
but it seems queer to be in command of a ship that will not--Hah! Look
at that!" he cried, stooping to pull from the deck an arrow which had
just fallen with a whizz. "You may as well keep some of these and take
'em home for curiosities, sir. There's no trickery or deceit about
them. They were not made for trade purposes, but for fighting."

"And are they poisoned?" said Drew anxiously.

"Best policy is to say no they are not, sir. We don't want to frighten
Mr Panton into the belief that he has been wounded by one, for if he
does, he'll get worse and worse and die of the fancy; whereas, after the
spirits are kept up, even if the arrow points have been dipped into
something nasty, he may fight the trouble down and get well again. I
say, take it that they are not poisoned and let's keep to that, for many
a man has before now died from imagination. Why, bless me! if the men
got to think that the savages' weapons were poisonous, every fellow who
got a scratch would take to his bunk, and we should have no end of
trouble."

"I suppose so," said Drew. "But tell me, what do you think of my
companions' wounds?"

"Well, speaking as a man who has been at sea twenty years, and has
helped to do a good deal of doctoring with sticking plaster and medicine
chest--for men often get hurt and make themselves ill--I should say as
they've both got nasty troublesome wounds which will pain them a bit for
weeks to come, but that there's nothing in them to fidget about. Young
hearty out-door-living fellows like yourselves have good flesh, and if
it's wounded it soon heals up again."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Of course, sir: when you're young you soon come right. It's when you
are getting old, and fidget and worry about your health, that you get
better slowly. Hah! there's another stuck up in the mainsail. That
won't hurt anybody."

"But tell me, Mr Rimmer, when did the savages come and attack you?"

"I was going to ask you to tell me why you were all so long. I was just
thinking of coming in search of you, expecting to find that you'd gone
down some hole or broken your necks, when one of the men came running up
from where he had been fishing in that nearest pool--for the crocs and
things have left a few fish swimming about still. Up he comes to the
gangway shouting,--`Mr Rimme