said Frank, cheerily.

"For writing home lies about you."

"They were not all lies, I'm sorry to say, Jack. But even if they were, I
forgive you from my very soul."

Jack groaned, and said no more. Assistants now came to meet them, and
Frank, who was almost exhausted with the fatigue of bringing his comrade
so far, was relieved of the burden. The road was near, and Jack was soon
laid upon a stretcher.

"Frank!" he gasped, rolling his eyes again, "don't leave me! For God's
sake, stay by me, Frank!"

So Frank kept by his side, while the men bore him along the road to a
tree, where the surgeon had hung up his red flag, and established his
hospital.

Ellis had just undergone the amputation of his mangled hand, without once
flinching under the surgeon's knife, and he remained on the spot to
encourage Winch.

"If I die," began Jack, stirring himself more than he had been observed
to do before. "Frank, do you hear me?"

"What is it, Jack?" asked the sympathizing boy.

"If I die, don't let me be buried on this miserable island!"

"But you are not going to die," said the surgeon, kindly, cutting away
the clothes from his neck.

Mr. Sinjin assisted, while Frank anxiously awaited the result of the
examination. The surgeon looked puzzled. There was blood, but not any
fresh blood--and no wound! Not so much as a scratch of the skin.

Jack in the mean time was groaning dismally.

"What are you making that noise for?" exclaimed the surgeon, sharply.
"There isn't a hurt about you!"

"Ain't I shot?" cried Jack, starting up, as much astonished as any body;
for he had really believed he was a dead man. "I was hit, I know! and I
swooned away."

"You swooned from fright, then," declared the indignant surgeon. "Take
the fellow away!"

Jack, however, gratified as he was to learn he was not killed, testily
insisted that a bullet had passed through him, adducing the blood on his
face as a proof.

Thereupon Ellis broke into a laugh.

"It takes Jack to make capital out of a little borrowed blood. I know
something about that. When my hand was ploughed through, I slapped it
against his face; and down he went, fainting dead away." And,
notwithstanding the ache of his wound and his weakness, and the scenes of
horror thickening around, Ned leaned back against the tree, and laughed
merrily at what he called Jack's "awful big scare."

Frank felt immensely relieved, at first, on learning that Jack was not
killed; then immensely