The Ghost Ship Part 20

"'Thin come along,' says she. 'Mistress Flannagan is dyin' to say you, sure. The soight of yez is good for sore eyes!'

"'Begorrah!' says Terence, 'I wouldn't have come at all at all if she hadn't been dyin', the poor crayture! Where is she?'

"'In the corner there,' returns the old hag, removing her dirty little black dhudeen of a pipe for a minnit from between her teeth, in order to spake the bether. 'She's a-sottin' in that cheir there, as she hav'

been since the mornin', widout sayin' a worrd to mortial saol afther she tould us to sind for the docther. May the divvle fly away with me, but Peggy Flannagan can be obstinate in foith, whin she likes!'

"Terence Mahony and I then poked our noses into the corner of the room, the old hag stirrin' the turf fire on the hearth to give us a bit of loight; an' then we saw the ould crayture, who looked as broad as she was long, sittin' in a big armchere, an' starin' at us with large, open eyes. But though she was breythin' hard loike a grampus, she didn't spake nothin'!

"'What's the mather, my good woman?' says Mahony, going up to her an'

spaking kindly to the poor crayture. 'Let me feel your pulse.'

"He caught hold of her hand, which hung down the side of the chere and fumbled at the wrist for some toime, the ould woman starin' an' sayin'

nothin' at all at all!

"'Faith, Garry O'Neil, I can't foind any pulse on her at all at all.

She must be di'd, worse luck!'

"'Och, you omahdaun; can't ye say her eyes open?' says I. 'Git out o'

the way an' let me thry!'

"Begorrah, though, I couldn't fale any pulse at all aythar.

"'She's in a faint, I think,' says Terence, pretendin' for to know all about it. 'We had jist sich a case in hospital t'other day. It's oine of suspended animation.'

"'Blatheration, Terence,' I cried at hearing this. 'You'll be a case of suspended animation yoursilf by-and-bye.'

"'Faith, how's that?' says he. 'What do you mean?'

"'Why, whin you're hung, me bhoy! for your ignorance of your profession.

Sure, one can say with half an eye the poor crayture is sufferin' from lumbago or peritonitas on the craynium, faith!'

"As we were arguin' the p'int, the ould hag who had introduced us brought our discussion to an end jist as Terence made up his mind that the case was cholera or elephantiasis or something else equally ridiculous!

"'Bad cess to the obstinate cantankerous ould crayture,' cried she, catching the poor sick woman by the scruff of the neck an' shakin' her violently backwards an' forrads, afther which she banged the poor thing violently on the sate of the chere. 'Will ye now spake to their honours, or will ye not? Won't ye now? She be that stubborn!' said she, turnin' to us; 'did ye ivver see anythin' loike it afore?'

"Mahony then tould her to put out her tongue, but the divvle a bit of her tongue saw we! Nor would she say a worrd as to her ailment, to give us a clue, though I believe on me oath, colonel, we mintioned ivery complaint known in the Pharmacopaia, Terence even axin' civilly if she had chilblames in the throat, for it was the depth of winter at the toime, to prevent her talkin'!

"But our coaxin' was all in vain, loike the ould hag's shaking!

"Faith, not a worrd moved our patient. She was that in all conscience, sure.

"'Begorrah, I'll sind a bucket of could wather over her an' say if that'll tach her manners!' said the ould hag, who tould us her own name was Biddy Flynne, on our giving her an odd sixthpence for a dhrop of drink. 'It's a shame to bring yez honours out for nothin'!'

"She was jist going to do what she had threatened, sure enough whin, providentially, in walked the professor from the college.

"He'd been listenin' outside the door, I believe, all the toime Terence an' mesilf were talkin' an' arguin' about the ould dame's complaint, puzzlin' our brains to find out what was the mather with her, for the baste of a man had a broad grin on his face, loike that you say on a mealy petaty whin the jacket pales off of it, whin he toorned round to us afther examinin' poor Mistress Flannagan, now all a heap on her chere.

"'Faith, I must complimint you, jintlemin, on the profound skill an'

knowledge you have shown in your profession,' says he. 'I don't think I ivver heard a more ignorant or illeterate diagnosis of a case since I've been professor at Trinity College!'

"He was a moighty polite man was Professor Lancett. Terence an' I both agrayed on his sayin' this, an' thought our fortunes were made an' we'd git our diplomas at once, without any examination, sure!

"But his nixt remark purty soon took the consate out of both of us.

"'It's lucky for you two dunder-headed ignoramases!' he went on to say in a nasty sneerin' way the baste had with him whin he was angry and was any way put out. 'Preshous lucky for you, Misther Terence Mahony, an'

you, too, Garry O'Neil, that I chanced to come afther you, thinkin' ye'd be up to some mischief, or else ye'd have put your foot in it with a vengeance an' murthered between you this poor, harmless ould woman lying here. I am ashamed and disgusted with you!'

"He thin prosayded to till what the poor crayture was sufferin' from, an' what d'ye think her complaint was, colonel? Jist give a guess, now, jist to oblige me, sure."

"Great Scot!" cried the American, smiling at O'Neil's naive manner and the happy and roguish expression on his face, our guest's appearance having been much improved, by the food of which he had partaken as well as the stimulant, which had put some little colour into his pale cheeks.

"I'm sure I can't guess. But what was it, sir, for you have excited my curiosity?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A BLACK BUSINESS.

"Be jabers, sor!" exclaimed the Irishman in his very broadest brogue and with a comical grin on his face that certainly must have eclipsed that of which he complained in the professor of his college who had caught him and his fellow-student trespa.s.sing on his medical preserves. "To till the truth an' shame the divvle, colonel, the poor ould crayture, whose complaint we couldn't underconstumble at all at all, sure, was sufferin' from a fit of apoplexy--a thing aisy enough to recognise by any docther of experience, though, faith, it moight have been Grake to us!"

We were all very much amused and had a good laugh at this naive confession, even Colonel Vereker sharing in the general mirth, in spite of his profound melancholy and the pain he felt from his wounded leg, which made him wince every now and again, I noticed, during the narration of the story Garry O'Neil had thus told, with the utmost good humour, it must be confessed, at his own expense, as, indeed, he had made us understand beforehand that it would be.

"By George!" cried the skipper, after having his laugh out, "you'll be the death of me some day with your queer yarns, if you can't manage to do for me with your professional skill, or by the aid of your drugs and lotions, poisons, most of 'em, and all your murderous-looking instruments, besides!"

"No fear of that, cap'en; you're too tough a customer," rejoined the doctor with a knowing look in the direction of Mr Stokes, who had made himself purple in the face and was panting and puffing on his seat, trying to recover his breath. "Faith, though, sor, talkin' of medical skill, the sooner I say afther that leg of our fri'nd here, the better, I'm thinkin'."

"With the best of wills," a.s.sented the colonel, who had finished his luncheon by this time and certainly presented a much improved appearance to that he had worn when entering the saloon. "I am quite at your service, doctor, and promise to be as quiet as that first patient of yours of whom you've just told us!"

"Belay that, colonel; none o' your chaff about the ould leddy, if you love me, sure!" growled Garry, pretending to be indignant as he knelt down on the cabin floor and slit up the leg of the colonel's trousers so as to inspect the wound. His nonsensical, quizzing manner changed instantly, however, on seeing the serious state of the injured limb, and he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in a subdued tone of voice, "Holy Moses!"

"Why, sir," said the patient quietly, "what's the matter now?"

"Ah, an' ye are axin' what's the mather?" cried Garry in a still more astonished tone. "Faith, it's wantin' to know I am how the divvle you've iver been able to move about at all, at all, colonel, with that thing there. Look at it now, an' till me what ye think of it yoursilf, me darlint. May the saints presairve us, but did any one iver say such a leg?"

It was, in truth, a fearful-looking object, being swollen to the most abnormal proportions from the ankle joint to the thigh, while the skin was of a dark hue, save where some extravasated blood cl.u.s.tered about a small punctured orifice just above the knee.

Colonel Vereker laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"The fortune of war," he explained. "One of those brutes shot me where that mark is, but I think the bullet travelled all round my thigh and lodged somewhere in the groin, I fancy, for I feel a lump there."

"Sure, I wonder you can fale anythin'!" cried Garry, who was probing for the missile all the time. "A man that can walk about, faith, loike an opera dancer, with a blue-mouldy leg loike that, can't have much faling at all, at all, I'm thinkin'!"

"Ah!" groaned his patient at last, on his touching the obnoxious bullet near the spot the colonel had indicated. "Whew! that hurts at any rate, doctor!"

"Just be aisy a minnit, me darlint," said the other soothingly, exchanging his probe for a pair of forceps and proceeding deftly to extract the leaden messenger. "An' if ye can't be aisy, faith, try an'

be as aisy as ye can!"

In another second he had it out with a triumphant and gleeful shout.