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"Yes, it is," cried Greyquill. "For people like you who can't get on ought to get out.", He had been told what had happened, and presented himself equipped with wool, lint, and bandages. He speedily discovered that the pistol had been discharged at the place where Mr Lawrence supposed his heart to beat. The unfortunate man imagined that the heart is on the left side of the body, whereas it is nearly in the middle, and is well protected by the breast-bone and ribs, so well indeed that only a small portion is unprotected. The bullet[Pg 441] had passed clean through the chest and left lung, and come out just below the left blade-bone of the shoulder. The surgeon, on removing Mr Lawrence's shirt and vest, found the bullet, which had not pierced the vest. The wounds of entrance and of exit were easily seen, and the former was bleeding freely., Mr Lawrence seemed to read the man's thoughts. Unscrupulous as was this Naval gentleman, he was an extremely clever fellow. Preserving a severe austerity of countenance, a demeanour upon which the word discipline was writ large, he exclaimed: "It is not my intention to ask you if Mr Eagle has broken his faith with me and communicated to you the confidence I imparted to him this morning. You are, sir, by virtue of your rank aboard the ship free of this cabin, and it is therefore desirable that I should trust you. The lady in yonder berth is Miss Lucy Acton, who consented to elope with me, providing it should be understood by all on board that she was being kidnapped or stolen from her home. That this should appear, it was arranged between us that she should be locked up as though she were a prisoner, and then in a day or two I should enlarge her, and she would go amongst the crew and speak of my cunning and stratagem, and her desperate lot in being torn from her father's home. All which would in due course reach her father's ears, and mollify his wrath at her giving me her hand in the existing state of my fortunes, and preserve to her the fortune she must inherit as Captain Acton's[Pg 279] only child. Now, sir," continued Mr Lawrence in his frowning, imperious way, "this is submitted to you in confidence, and it is manifestly my wish that some of the crew should credit her story that they may give the evidence we desire when they are called upon to tell what they know!".