The _Vesuvius_ bomb, measuring but a little more than ninety feet over all, with a beam of some twenty-seven feet, and carrying seventy odd men and boys, with six long six-pounder guns and a couple of heavy mortars, could spare but scanty room for hospital accommodation. At a pinch, a dozen hammocks could be slung in the den which the marine's lantern revealed; but how a dozen sick men could recover there, and how the surgeon could move between the hammocks to perform his ministrations, were mysteries happily left unsolved. As it was, the two invalids and their visitors crowded the place to suffocation. "Delirious, you say?" hemmed the surgeon, a bald little man with a twinkling eye, an unshaven chin and a very greasy shirt frill. "Well, well, give me your pulse, my friend. Better a blister on the neck than a round shot at your feet, hey? I near upon gave you up when they brought you aboard--upon my word I did." The Major groaned. "You seemed a humane man, sir," he answered feebly. "Spare me your blisters and get me put ashore, for pity's sake!" The doctor shook his head. "My good fellow, we weighed an hour ago with a fresh northerly breeze. I haven't been on deck, but by the cant of her we must be clear of the Sound already and hauling up for Portsmouth." "On your peril you detain me, sir! I'll have your fool of a captain broken for this--cashiered, sir--kicked out of the service, by Heaven! I am a Justice of the Peace, I tell you!" "And _coram_," put in Mr. Sturge, "and _custalorum_. He'll make a Star-Chamber matter of it. . . . The poor fellow's raving, I tell you. A curse on your inhumanity! But I can wait for my revenge at Portsmouth. Approach, fellows, and knock off those gyves." "Justice of the Peace!" echoed Ben Jope, paying no attention whatever to Mr. Sturge, but turning on Bill Adams with round, wondering eyes. "I _told_ you he was something out o' the common. And you ain't had no more sense than to knock him over the head with a cutlass!" "I did not," protested Bill Adams. "He took it accidental, you being otherwise engaged; an' I stuck to the creatur', thinkin' as how you _wanted_ him." "But _why_ should I want him?" "Damned if I know. If it comes to that"--Bill Adams jerked a thumb towards the hammock containing Mr. Sturge--"what d'ye want _him_ for?" "Oh, _him_?" answered Mr. Jope with a grin. "In a gale off Pernambuco--" "What on earth are you two talking about?" asked the surgeon, who had seated himself on the deck and, with the lantern between his feet, was busily preparing a blister. "Beggin' your pardon, sir, but you haven't been on deck yet? You haven't _seen_ the ducks we brought aboard last night?"