Freeman sailed his craft and threaded the lines of the dragging trawlers with stealthy speed.  A hail came at last.

“Yacht ahoy!  Have you still got the doctor aboard?”

The weird answer rang amid the shrill treble of the gaffs.

“Then come aboard of us if you can.  It’s bad.”

Two men were down in the boat in a moment, and the yacht edged her way toward the smack.  When Lewis and Tom went down below, the burly comedian’s true character soon became apparent.  A handsome young fellow was twisting and gasping on the floor in pain cruel to see.

“He’ve eat somethin’s disagreed with him, sir.  We’ve tried Gregory, what my mate had, and we give him some pills what I had, would a’most done for me.  ‘Tisn’t a morsel o’ good.”

Tom Lennard picked the poor fellow off the floor—­so gently, so very gently; he eased him up and put the man’s head against his breast.  A slight swing of the vessel followed, and the lad shrieked and gasped.  Instantly Ferrier saw what had happened.

“Help me to take his clothes off, Lennard.”

They stripped the patient to the skin; then Ferrier glanced once, touched just lightly enough to make the young man draw breath with a whistling sound, then the deft, steady fingers ran carefully down, and Lewis said—­

“Tom, keep him as easy as you can till I come back from the yacht.  Skipper, you didn’t think to strip him.”

“No, sir; why?”

“Well, he has three ribs broken, that is all.”

“Eh! he said he had a tumble agin the anchor in the breeze.”  “Yes, and I cannot tell how his lung has escaped.”

When Lewis returned he strapped the sufferer up like an artist, and then said—­

“Now, skipper, you must run home as soon as the trawl is up.”

“Home!  An’ lose my woyage maybe?”

“Can’t help that.  You have no place for him here.  See, he’s off to sleep now his pain’s gone, but where will he be if the sea rises?”

The skipper groaned; it seemed hard.  Lewis thought a little and said—­

“Will you let me take him aboard of us now while it’s smooth, and I’ll see if we can find you a man?  If Larmor of the Haughty Belle will come, can you work with him?”

“Like a shot.”

Larmor’s jaw was better, and he said—­

“I’d be a bad ’un if I wouldn’t oblige you, sir, anyway.  My jaw’s main sore, but I can do little things.”

“You see, Lennard,” quietly observed Lewis, after Larmor had gone, “I’m making an experiment.  If that lad had been left without such a mattress as ours, he would have died, surely.  And now I’ll guarantee that I send him back able to steer and do light work in ten days.”

“That’s where the hospital would come in.  Well, you’ll soon teach us instead of us teaching you.  Oh! surprising! oh-h-h! paralyzing! oh-h-h! majestic! majestic!”

Tom was right in his exclamatory way, as we shall see by and by.