e are. There, that will do; get on your
jacket."

Steve began, but the pain the act gave him turned him sick, and seeing
this the doctor helped him.

"There must be something the matter, sir," he said, rather piteously,
"or it wouldn't hurt like this."

"Hardly fair to call it anything the matter, my lad. Your shoulder has
had a nasty wrench from the jerk with which you were brought up."

"But it hurts so much lower down."

"And no wonder. In two or three days your side there will be black and
blue."

"And why--what should make it so, sir?"

"Johannes' great hand. Why, he must have gripped you there like a steel
claw."

"Yes, he did. I felt it like that. He got hold of a lot of the flesh."

"Exactly; and a good thing, too. Better than letting you fall sixty to
seventy feet."

"Much," said Steve dolefully.

"Humph! don't sound as if you thought so, my boy. There, you've not
anything serious the matter with you. The bruises will get well of
themselves. But don't look at me in that disappointed way; were you in
the hope that I should perform some serious operation?"

"Ugh! No, sir."

"Oh, I see; you are disappointed because I have given you no medicine.
Why, Steve, you are as bad as the poor people who come to a dispensary.
They are not happy unless they have a box of pills and a bottle of
medicine. I'll mix you up something."

"No, no! don't, sir, please," cried Steve. "I am very much better now;
I am, indeed."

"Very well, then; lie down there for an hour or two, till the sickness
produced by the shock has gone off."

"Oh no, sir. I needn't do that, need I?"

"Well, then, come on deck."

Steve rose from the locker, winced, and subsided again.

"I think I will lie for a little while."

The doctor nodded and left him in the cabin, where he lay back for about
ten minutes listening to the thumping about on deck, where the men were
evidently busy making more preparations for the adventurous cruise. His
shoulder ached, and there was a peculiar strained feeling about the
muscles of his chest; but this did not trouble him so much as the
strained sensation in his mind. For, as he lay back there, he began to
think about what they were saying respecting him on deck. The doctor
would have told Captain Marsham how he was, Mr Lowe would hear it, and
then it would go to the men from the engineer and the four Norwegians
downward.

"And they'll think I've no more pluck than a girl," he though