VI
When Barnaby True came back to his senses again, it was to become aware
that he was being cared for with great skill and nicety, that his head
had been bathed with cold water, and that a bandage was being bound
about it as carefully as though a chirurgeon was attending to him.
He had been half conscious of people about him, but could not
immediately recall what had happened to him, nor until he had opened
his eyes to find himself in a perfectly strange cabin of narrow
dimensions but extremely well fitted and painted with white and gold.
By the light of a lantern shining in his eyes, together with the gray
of the early day through the deadlight, he could perceive that two men
were bending over him--one, a negro in a striped shirt, with a yellow
handkerchief around his head and silver ear-rings in his ears; the
other, a white man, clad in a strange, outlandish dress of a foreign
make, with great mustachios hanging down below his chin, and with gold
ear-rings in his ears.
It was this last who was attending to Barnaby's hurt with such extreme
care and gentleness.
All this Barnaby saw with his first clear consciousness after his
swoon. Then remembering what had befallen him, and his head beating as
though it would split asunder, he shut his eyes again, contriving with
great effort to keep himself from groaning aloud, and wondering as to
what sort of pirates these could be, who would first knock a man in the
head so terrible a blow as that which he had suffered, and then take
such care to fetch him back to life again, and to make him easy and
comfortable.
Nor did he open his eyes again, but lay there marvelling thus until the
bandage was properly tied about his head and sewed together. Then once
more he opened his eyes and looked up to ask where he was.
Upon hearing him speak, his attendants showed excessive signs of joy,
nodding their heads and smiling at him as though to reassure him. But
either because they did not choose to reply, or else because they could
not speak English, they made no answer, excepting by those signs and
gestures. The white man, however, made several motions that our hero
was to arise, and, still grinning and nodding his head, pointed as
though towards a saloon beyond. At the same time the negro held up our
hero's coat and beckoned for him to put it on. Accordingly Barnaby,
seeing that it was required of him to quit the place in which he then
lay, arose, though with a good deal of effort, and permitted the negro
to help him on with his coat, though feeling mightily dizzy and much
put about to keep upon his legs--his head beating fit to split asunder
and the vessel rolling and pitching at a great rate, as though upon a
heavy cross-sea.
So, still sick and dizzy, he went out into what he found was, indeed, a
fine saloon beyond, painted in white and gilt like the cabin he had
just quitted. This saloon was fitted in the most excellent taste
imaginable. A table extended the length of the room, and a quantity of
bottles, and glasses clear as crystal, were arranged in rows in a
hanging rack above.
But what most attracted our hero's attention was a man sitting with his
back to him, his figure clad in a rough pea-jacket, and with a red
handkerchief tied around his throat. His feet were stretched under the
table out before him, and he was smoking a pipe of tobacco with all the
ease and comfort imaginable. As Barnaby came in he turned round, and,
to the profound astonishment of our hero, presented to him in the light
of the lantern, the dawn shining pretty strong through the skylight,
the face of that very man who had conducted the mysterious expedition
that night across Kingston Harbor to the Cobra River.
