poor fellow who was shot by those ruffians has taken a turn for the better, and if the gentleman, whom I take to be your father, can but perform a simple operation for him——” “My father, sir, is a most skilled surgeon, and can perform any operation,” answered Joan, interrupting him proudly. Her look was so full of fire, the carriage of her head, in its graceful hood, so superb, as she uttered the ingenuous words, that Lieutenant Tregenna smiled a little as he saluted her and turned to the parson, who, panting and in some disorder, had at length reached the deck. The young man introduced himself, and they saluted each other, the parson with some difficulty, since the continual motion of the vessel was somewhat trying to his landsman’s legs. Then they went below, and in a few minutes the young man returned alone. Joan had been accommodated with a seat by the tiller, and protected from wind and water by a tarpaulin, out of which her bonny face peeped white in the moonlight. [18] [18] “You have no work for me, sir?” she asked, as the lieutenant came up. “None, madam; and even less for your good father than we feared might be the case. He has found the bullet, and ’twill be an easy matter to extract it, so he says; and after that, ’tis a mere matter of a few days’ quiet to set the poor fellow on his legs again. So the rascals escaped murder this time; not that one crime more or less would sit hard on the conscience of such villains!” For a moment Joan said nothing. Then she hazarded, in a very dry, demure voice— “But, sir, by what I heard, your side went as near committing murder as the other. The man who brought us hither spoke of a bullet in the leg of one of the fishermen.” “Fishermen! Odds my life, madam, but that’s a very pretty way of putting it! I hope you han’t the same kindness for the rascals that seems to be strong among the country-folk here! Nay, I won’t do you the injustice to suppose you could hold their villainies in aught but abhorrence.” “Whatever is villainous I hope I abhor very properly,” answered Joan with spirit. “And[19] the shooting down of one’s fellow-men I do hold one of the greatest villainies of all.” [19] “When ’tis
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