"No, your honour," howled the wretch; "I heard the shot and ran in. I'd have asked him to shoot me instead--I loved him, your honour--I worshipped him, kind gentlemen--he was good to me, he was the only friend I ever had in the world. I'd have died over and over again for him." The hunchback broke down, and roared in tears. "He lives, Acton," said the Admiral in a low voice. "Some brandy and water might bring him to." Captain Acton told Paul to fetch some, and the wild, deformed creature of the forest, as Lucy had called him, sped from the cabin on the errand. It proved as the Admiral had said. After a little brandy and water had been poured between the ashen lips, Mr Lawrence opened his eyes. They opened full upon his father, whose face was stooped close to him. Consciousness was tardy in her awakening, but on a sudden the prostrate, bleeding man recognised his father, and with that look of recognition there must have come to him some vision of memory presenting scenes of his past. He frowned, sighed, turned his eyes upon Captain Acton, and closed them, but not as though he had fainted, for the lids were firm set. Whilst they waited for the arrival of the frigate's surgeon, Captain Acton asked Paul some questions which the hunchback answered as though when the examination was over the Captain would send him to be hanged forthwith at the yard-arm. In an agony of impatience the Admiral awaited the arrival of the medical man, who, considering that there was a space of blown and running sea for the boat to cross and re-cross, returned with Mr Fellowes in a space of time that was the expression of the habitual and disciplined promptitude of everything in which time finds a place, that is carried on aboard a British man-of-war. He had been told what had happened, and presented himself equipped with wool, lint, and bandages. He speedily discovered that the pistol had been discharged at the place where Mr Lawrence supposed his heart to beat. The unfortunate man imagined that the heart is on the left side of the body, whereas it is nearly in the middle, and is well protected by the breast-bone and ribs, so well indeed that only a small portion is unprotected. The bullet had passed clean through the chest and left lung, and come out just below the left blade-bone of the shoulder. The surgeon, on removing Mr Lawrence's shirt and vest, found the bullet, which had not pierced the vest. The wounds of entrance and of exit were easily seen, and the former was bleeding freely.