“Old Five’s strong box,” said he. “That’s where he keeps what isn’t good to eat. I guess the best of the stuff’s landed by this time. It went off in Colin Ross’s ship. You might buy yourself a gold brick out of what’s left and not be much poorer. We share and share in that now. There used to be a guard down here night and day when old Isaac was aboard. I guess you scared him pretty badly. He ran for the Brazils the day after we sighted you——” I asked him but one question in turn. “Was General Fordibras on board with the man you speak of?” “Not this trip. I heard tell he’d gone to Europe. He’s too easy for this job. Three-Fingers never could look a Sheffield knife in the face. I guess his daughter’s got all the courage.” We had passed another door of steel as he spoke and descended a short flight of stairs to a second corridor, about which were cabins of a commoner order. Here the surgery of the ship had been located—a well fitted, thoroughly modern apartment, recently tenanted, it seemed, by a doctor who knew what the hospitals of Europe were doing. A quick search discovered the antiseptics, the wool, the liniment and the lancets, without which so little could be done for the wounded men above. There was nothing missing for the practice of a modern art. It would be a work of supererogation to tell you of the long hours which followed immediately upon my assumption of the _rôle_ of ship’s doctor. I passed through them as one passes through a dreamland of restless thoughts. There were no fewer than thirty-one wounded men upon the steamer; and, of these, seven belonged to the fo’castle party, twenty-four to the saloons. The latter chained my interests in spite of their condition, for there were Englishmen among them, and faces that the stories of recent crimes had made familiar to me. One lad, slashed heavily across the forehead by a clasp knife, had been mentioned, I remembered, in connection with the famous forgeries upon the Bank of England some five years ago. I recognised the Italian jewel thief, Detucchi, the German forger, Urich, the young Belgian, Monterry, supposed to be serving a sentence of penal servitude for life for his attack upon King Leopold. Happily, few of these men had been wounded by rifle bullets. Those whom the guns had killed fell upon the instant and their bodies were already in the sea. My patients were the victims of cuts, fearful gashes in some cases, and difficult fractures in others. Two died while I tried to help them. It was a woeful task, and I trust that I may never be called to its fellow. The honest men, happily, for so I called the sailors of the ship, had suffered considerably less. I found them profoundly grateful for such services as I could render them; nor did the American hesitate to tell me frankly the story of the mutiny.