s eyeballs, and then, with a great humming in his head, swooned
dead away.

When Barnaby True came back to his senses again it was to find himself
being cared for with great skill and nicety, his head bathed with cold
water, and a bandage being bound about it as carefully as though a
chirurgeon was attending to him.

He could not immediately recall what had happened to him, nor until he
had opened his eyes to find himself in a strange cabin, extremely well
fitted and painted with white and gold, the light of a lantern shining
in his eyes, together with the gray of the early daylight through the
dead-eye. Two men were bending over him--one, a negro in a striped
shirt, with a yellow handkerchief around his head and silver earrings in
his ears; the other, a white man, clad in a strange outlandish dress of
a foreign make, and with great mustachios hanging down, and with gold
earrings in his ears.

It was the latter who was attending to Barnaby's hurt with such extreme
care and gentleness.

All this Barnaby saw with his first clear consciousness after his swoon.
Then remembering what had befallen him, and his head beating as though
it would split asunder, he shut his eyes again, contriving with great
effort to keep himself from groaning aloud, and wondering as to what
sort of pirates these could be who would first knock a man in the head
so terrible a blow as that which he had suffered, and then take
such care to fetch him back to life again, and to make him easy and
comfortable.

Nor did he open his eyes again, but lay there gathering his wits
together and wondering thus until the bandage was properly tied about
his head and sewed together. Then once more he opened his eyes, and
looked up to ask where he was.

Either they who were attending to him did not choose to reply, or else
they could not speak English, for they made no answer, excepting by
signs; for the white man, seeing that he was now able to speak, and
so was come back into his senses again, nodded his head three or four
times, and smiled with a grin of his white teeth, and then pointed, as
though toward a saloon beyond. At the same time the negro held up our
hero's coat and beckoned for him to put it on, so that Barnaby, seeing
that it was required of him to meet some one without, arose, though with
a good deal of effort, and permitted the negro to help him on with his
coat, still feeling mightily dizzy and uncertain upon his legs, his head
beating fit t