Meanwhile Briscoe had not been idle. The keen inquisitiveness of his nature was now shown in a very different way, for his eyes were searching the depths of the forest as he peered through the gloom among the dimly-seen trunks again, and he fired twice in the direction from which the splashing of paddles had been heard. He never turned his head nor shifted his eyes for a moment from that point, reloading by touch alone, while after he had fired the first shot he took upon himself to give orders to the sailors in a stern, firm voice. "Get back to the brig as fast as you can, my lads." It was not until he had assured himself of the fact that their enemy was in retreat that he turned for a moment to where Brace was busy with his amateur surgery. "That's right," he said; "I shouldn't bandage it up yet. Let it bleed, in case the arrow was smeared with anything nasty. It's hardly likely that it was, though." As he spoke he picked up the barbed head, glanced at it, and then slipped it into his pocket in the most indifferent way. "I wouldn't fidget about that," he said to Sir Humphrey. "Most of the things we hear are old women's tales. Here, hold my gun," he added sharply to his man. He thrust an arm round Sir Humphrey, just as his eyes were closing and he glided slowly along the side of the boat. The next moment he too leaned over to scoop up some water and trickle it over the fainting man's face. "Bah!" he ejaculated, "how sharp they are!" For a little silvery fish, which in company with a shoal had darted at his finger, fell with a pat on the wounded man's breast, and lay quivering and leaping till it disappeared through the grating at the bottom of the boat. "Does that fainting mean danger?" cried Brace excitedly. "Oh, no. Let his head go right down, and he'll soon come to." "But you are of opinion that the arrow was poisoned," whispered Brace, in a whisper which was expressive of painful anxiety. "It had been smeared with some stuff by an ignorant savage; but it may not be poisonous to human beings, and even if it were you've been drawing it all away from the wound." "Oh, make haste, men; make haste," cried Brace excitedly. "Let 'em be, my lad," said Briscoe; "they're doing their best. Come, keep cool, for your brother's sake." "Oh, don't talk like that," cried Brace wildly. "Look at him: he's dying and we right away in the forest like this." "You keep cool," said the American sternly. "He isn't dying nor anything like it. Only fainting from the shock, and he'll soon come to. It won't help him for you to turn hysterical like a girl. You began right; now keep it up." "What, shall I go on doing something to the wound?" "No, I'd let that be now. You must have cleared it from anything that wiped off as the arrow passed in, and he's a strong, brave fellow. There, look: he's coming to." Sir Humphrey's eyelids had begun to quiver, and at the end of a few minutes he had quite recovered consciousness.