ifted part of the
blanket, and I felt as if I had been stunned by an electric shock on
observing that his right leg had been amputated above the knee. For
some moments I could not speak. I could not move. It was with
difficulty that I could draw my labouring breath. Suddenly I clasped my
hands--

"O Jack! my beloved! my--" I gasped. My throat was parched. For one
moment I thought I was dying. Suddenly I started up, uttered a great
agonising cry, and fell down on the deck. Then a flood of tears sprang
into my burning eyes, and I sobbed as if my heart would burst asunder.
I did not try to check this. It was too precious a relief to my
insupportable agony. I crept close to my friend's cot, took his hand
gently, and, laying my cheek upon it, wept there as I never wept before.
Jack's former advice now came back to me vividly, and his words of
caution, "Honour thy father and thy mother," burned deep into my
throbbing brain, while my accusing conscience whispered unceasingly,
"You brought him to this--you brought him to this!" My sorrow was
broken in upon rudely by the first mate.

"What are you doin' here, you young blackguard?" he cried, seizing me by
the collar, and dragging me to the foot of the ladder that led out of
this bloody den. "Skulking, eh! _I'll_ teach you to skulk; _I'll_ cure
you o' that, my lad! _I'll_ tan your skin for you," and at each
emphatic word he gave a blow with a rope's end that raised a bar of
livid flesh across my back. "There," he cried, giving me a final cut,
and hurling me up the first few steps of the ladder, "on deck with you!"

I did not hesitate to comply. I gained the deck with unusual rapidity,
smarting with pain and burning with indignation. But what I saw going
on there made me almost forget my pain. The great swivel gun amidships
was being cleared for action, and our captain was giving orders beside
it as coolly and quietly as if nothing unusual had occurred that day.

I was deeply impressed for a few minutes with this cool, calm
indifference, which characterised the men as well as the captain; but
when I had considered a little, I came to understand that they were used
to battle and bloodshed, and that therefore it was quite natural. After
that I ceased to wonder at anything. Indeed, the power to be astonished
seemed to leave my breast altogether, and from that moment I regarded
everything that happened on the pirate vessel as being quite what might
be expected-