When I came to myself, I knew by the lazy rocking of the vessel that it was once more afloat; I was lying on a bench beneath a porthole, and when I turned my head to see more particularly where I was, Mistress Lucy came towards me, her eyes shining with kindness.

“Mistress Lucy!” I cried, trying to rise, but wincing at an exquisite pain in my leg.

“Don’t move,” she said.  “The surgeon said you were to lie quite still.”

“The surgeon!” I repeated, scarce believing I had heard aright.

“Yes, you are surprised,” she said with a smile; “but that is not the strangest of the many strange things that have happened of late.  One of the crew of this vessel was once a surgeon; he took his degrees in Edinburgh, he told me—­”

“And that’s true,” said a harsh voice, and there entered the cabin one of the buccaneers—­a big bottle-nosed fellow, with a face of purple hue.  “And how are ye the noo, Mister?”

“Mighty shaky!” I said.  “What is wrong with me?”

“A bit wound in the dexter femur,” he said, “within a hair’s breadth like o’ your femoral artery and kingdom come.

“But ye’ll do fine,” he added, feeling my pulse.  “Man, ye’ve good blood in your veins, and me having a good hand at the cutting, we’ll verra soon have ye on your two feet again; and the lassie will no like be fashed at that, I’m thinkin’.”

“I am to thank you then for cutting out the bullet,” I said, and then, remembering how I had come by it, I cried:  “Have they got that villain?”

“Meanin’ Vetch?” says the man.  “Hoots!  Ye’ll no catch him; he’s a slithery man, yon.  He was up and awa’ before he could be stoppit, with a wheen o’ yelling niggers after him.  Aweel, I’m no that sorry mysel’, for he wasna just what ye would call a gentleman.”

I suppose that something of what I was thinking showed in my face, for the Scotchman continued: 

“I had naething against him as an employer, ye ken; he was sound wi’ the siller; but his dealin’ wi’ sic a bonny lassie kind o’ affrontit me, and I’m well enough pleased ye got the better of him in that regard.  I mind o’ the time when I had a wee-bit lassie mysel’.”

And then the besotted fellow began to weep, and comforted himself with a long pull from a flask he took from his pocket.  ’Twas plain that the drink had been his undoing, and indeed, before I parted company with him in Port Royal some days later, he told me with maudlin tears the story of his declension from surgeon on a king’s ship to buccaneer, and preached me many an impressive sermon on the text of the bottle.

Mistress Lucy had withdrawn while we were talking, and Sandy MacLeod, as he was named, dressed my wound again with a hand as tender as a woman’s.  And then Joe Punchard came down to see me, Cludde remaining on deck to keep an eye on the crew.  Vetch had sprung overboard, and run fleetly as a deer to the shore, and though the negroes on the cliff sped after him with yells, they had a round of half a mile to go over rough ground, and could not catch him.  I would fain have him in my power, so that he might receive his desserts at the hands of a jury, and be deprived at least of further opportunities of mischief, but my vexation at his escape was solaced by the knowledge that Mistress Lucy’s safety was secure.