There seemed no bone at all, just a great fissure, a deep valley covered with skin; and I was confident that the brain pulsed immediately under that skin.
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.

.

.