He pulled his cap on and laughed in an amused, reassuring way.
"A crazy sea cook did that, Mr. Pathurst, with a meat-axe. We were
thousands of miles from anywhere, in the South Indian Ocean at the
time, running our Easting down, but the cook got the idea into his
addled head that we were lying in Boston Harbour, and that I wouldn't
let him go ashore. I had my back to him at the time, and I never
knew what struck me."
"But how could you recover from so fearful an injury?" I questioned.
"There must have been a splendid surgeon on board, and you must have
had wonderful vitality."
He shook his head.
"It must have been the vitality . . . and the molasses."
"Molasses!"
"Yes; the captain had old-fashioned prejudices against antiseptics.
He always used molasses for fresh wound-dressings. I lay in my bunk
many weary weeks--we had a long passage--and by the time we reached
Hong Kong the thing was healed, there was no need for a shore
surgeon, and I was standing my third mate's watch--we carried third
mates in those days.
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