the
Singapore man within reach of his arm, than he raised himself, and made
a cut at that individual with such good will that he split his skull
across down nearly to the ears.

Next moment he was hauled into the boat and bound hand and foot.

The scene on board the gun-boat now was a very terrible one. Every man
there was more or less begrimed with powder and smoke, or bespattered
with blood and soaked with water, while all round the decks the wounded
were sitting or lying awaiting their turn of being attended to, and
groaning more or less with pain.

On calling the roll after the action was over, it was found that the
loss suffered by the gun-boat crew was two men killed and eighteen
wounded--a very small number considering the time during which the
affair had lasted, and the vigour with which the pirates had fought.

And now was beautifully exemplified the advantage of a man possessing a
"little knowledge"--falsely styled "a dangerous thing"--over a man who
possesses _no_ knowledge. Now, also, was exhibited the power and
courage that are latent in true womanhood.

There was no surgeon on board of that gun-boat, and, with the exception
of Edgar Berrington, there was not a man possessed of a single scrap of
surgical knowledge deeper than that required for the binding up of a cut
finger.

As we have already shown, our hero had an inquiring mind. While at
college he had become intimately acquainted with, and interested in, one
or two medical students, with whom he conversed so much and so
frequently about their studies, that he became quite familiar with
these, and with their medical and surgical phraseology, so that people
frequently mistook him for a student of medicine. Being gifted with a
mechanical turn of mind, he talked with special interest on surgery;
discussed difficulties, propounded theories, and visited the hospitals,
the dissecting-rooms, and the operating-theatres frequently. Thus he
came, unintentionally, to possess a considerable amount of surgical
knowledge, and when, at last, he was thrown providentially into a
position where no trained man could be found, and urgent need for one
existed, he came forward and did his best like a man.

Aileen Hazlit also, on being told that there was need of a woman's
tender hand in such work, at once overcame her natural repugnance to
scenes of blood; she proceeded on deck, and, with a beating heart but
steady hand, went to work like a trained disciple of F