Fitz the Filibuster Part 8

"Blus-ter, sir?"

"Yes, b-l-u-s-t-e-r. You can't call it anything else. I know how you feel. Humbled like at being caught like this. I'm sorry for you."

"Sorry! Bah!"

"Well, I am, really; but, to tell the truth, I should be more sorry if you could get away. It's rather jolly having you here. But you are a bit grumpy this morning. Your head hurts you, doesn't it?"

"Hurts? Horrid! It is just as if somebody was trying to bore a hole in my skull with a red-hot auger."

Poole sprang up, soaked a handkerchief with water, folded it into a square patch, and laid it on the injured place, dealing as tenderly with his patient as if his fingers were those of a woman, with the result that the pain became dull and Fitz lay back in his bunk with his eyes half-closed.

"Feel well enough to have a game of draughts?" said Poole, after a pause.

"No; and you haven't got a board."

"But I have got a big card that I marked out myself, and blackened some of the squares with ink."

"Where are your men?"

"Hanging up in that bag."

"Let's look."

Poole took a little canvas bag from the hook from which it hung and turned out a very decent set of black and white pieces. "You didn't make those?"

"Yes, I did."

"How did you get them so round?"

"Oh, I didn't do that. Chips lent me his little tenon-saw, and I cut them all off a roller; he helped me to finish them up with sandpaper, and told me what to soak half of them in to make them black."

The invalid began to be more and more interested in the neat set of draughtsmen. "What did you soak them in--ink?" he asked. "No; guess again."

"Oh, I can't guess. s.h.i.+p's paint, perhaps, or tar."

"No; they wouldn't have looked neat like that. Vitriol--sulphuric acid."

"What, had you got that sort of stuff on board the schooner?"

"The governor has in his big medicine-chest."

"And did that turn them black like this?"

"Yes; you just paint them over with it, and hold them to the galley fire. I suppose it burns them. They all come black like that, and you polish them up with a little beeswax, and there you are."

"Well, it was rather clever for a rough chap like you," said Fitz grudgingly. "Can you play?"

"Oh, just a little--for a rough chap like me. One has so much time out at sea."

"Oh, well, we'll have just one game. How many pieces shall I give you?"

"Oh, I should think you ought to give me half," was the reply.

"Very well," said Fitz cavalierly; "take half. I used to be a pretty good fist at this at school. Where's your board?"

Poole thrust his hand under the cabin-table and turned a couple of b.u.t.tons, setting free a stiff piece of mill-board upon which a sheet of white paper had been pasted and the squares neatly marked out and blacked.

The pieces were placed, and the game began, with Fitz, after his bandage had been re-moistened, supporting himself upon his left elbow to move his pieces with his right hand, which somehow seemed to have forgotten its cunning, for with double the draughts his cool matter-of-fact adversary beat him easily.

"Yes," said Fitz, rather pettishly; "I'm a bit out of practice, and my head feels thick."

"Sure to," said Poole, "knocked about as you were. Have some more pieces this time."

"Oh no!" said Fitz, "I can beat you easily like this if I take more care."

The pieces were set once more, and Fitz played his best, but he once more lost.

"Have some more pieces this time," said Poole.

"Nonsense!" was snapped out. "I tell you I can beat you this way, and I will."

The third game was played, one which took three times as long as the last, and as he was beaten the middy let himself sink back on his pillow with a gesture full of impatience.

"Yes," he said; "I know where I went wrong there. My head burns so, and I wasn't thinking."

"Yes, I saw where you made that slip. You might as well have given up at once."

"Oh, might I?" was snapped out.

"Here, let me give that handkerchief a good soaking before we begin another."

"Yes, you didn't half wet it last time. Don't wring it out so much."

"All right. Why, it's quite hot. It must have made your head so much the cooler. There, does that feel more comfortable?"

"Yes, that's better. Now make haste and set out the men."

Poole arranged the pieces, and Fitz sat up again.

"Here, what have you been doing?" he cried. "You have given me two more."

"Well," said the skipper's son, smiling, "it'll make us more equal."

"Don't you holloa till you're out of the wood," cried Fitz haughtily, and he flicked the two extra pieces off the board. "Do you think I'm going to let you beat me? My head's clearer now. I think I know how to play a game of draughts."

The sick boy thought so, but again his adversary proved far stronger, winning easily; and the middy dropped back on the pillow.

"It isn't fair," he cried.