smoke rose; the tall, herculean back of D'ri was just ahead of me.
His sleeve had been ripped away from shoulder to elbow, and a spray
of blood from his upper arm was flying back upon me. His hat crown
had been torn off, and there was a big rent in his trousers, but he
kept going, I saw my man had been killed in my arms by a piece of
chain, buried to its last link in his breast. I was so confused by
the shock of it all that I had not the sense to lay him down, but
followed D'ri to the cockpit. He stumbled on the stairs, falling
heavily with his burden. Then I dropped my poor gunner and helped
them carry D'ri to a table, where they bade me lie down beside him.

"It is no time for jesting," said I, with some dignity.

"My dear fellow," the surgeon answered, "your wound is no jest.
You are not fit for duty."

I looked down at the big hole in my trousers and the cut in my
thigh, of which I had known nothing until then. I had no sooner
seen it and the blood than I saw that I also was in some need of
repair, and lay down with a quick sense of faintness. My wound was
no pretty thing to see, but was of little consequence, a missile
having torn the surface only. I was able to help Surgeon Usher as
he caught the severed veins and bathed the bloody strands of muscle
in D'ri's arm, while another dressed my thigh. That room was full
of the wounded, some lying on the floor, some standing, some
stretched upon cots and tables. Every moment they were crowding
down the companionway with others. The cannonading was now so
close and heavy that it gave me an ache in the ears, but above its
quaking thunder I could hear the shrill cries of men sinking to
hasty death in the grip of pain. The brig was in sore distress,