Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/233

 stretch in which he was indulging with a sharp groan, or growl, as he sat up and pressed his hand to his side.

"Why, what's the matter with me, an' where am I?" he exclaimed, gazing round the cave, while a look of wonder gradually displaced the expression of pain.

"You 're all right—rescued from the pirates at all events," answered Sam Shipton, rising from table and sitting down beside the seaman's couch.

"Thank God for that!" said the man earnestly, though with a troubled look; but how did I escape—where are the rascals?—what—"

"There, now, don't excite yourself, my man; you 're not quite yourself in body. Come, let me feel your pulse. Ah, slightly feverish—no wonder I 'll tell you all about it soon, but at present you must be content merely to know that you are safe in the hands of friends, that you are in the pirates' cave, and that the pirates and their vessel are now at the bottom of the sea."

"That 's hardly c'rect, Mr. Shipton," murmured Slagg; "I would have said they was blow'd to hatoms."

The seaman turned and looked at the speaker with what would have been a twinkle if his swelled visage would have permitted, but the effort produced another spasm of pain.