"Because I have—I—I have resigned from the Mission, Mr. Rolfe. I am waiting for Mr. Leyden's return. He has offered me a passage to Java and suggested that I go on board to wait until the Padang sails. But I can't rest easily there. There is something in the crew that makes me shudder. I never met men of their kind before."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't offer you accommodations on our ship. She's on the bottom of the river just now—put there by Mr. Leyden's orders, no doubt. I haven't got any men to spare, either, nor no time, Miss. Tell me quick what you want me to do."
Jerry Rolfe slung a water canteen over his shoulder, handed pistol cartridges to Bill Blunt from his own pocket store, and looked around impatiently for the guide.
"I don't know what to do," cried the girl. She was not hysterical in the least; she seemed quite capable of revealing a wide streak of calm, helpful courage, if only her doubts might be set at rest. She went on hurriedly: "I cannot move hand or foot except between the Mission and here. Everywhere I go I hear, but cannot see, whispering men who follow me like my shadow. Why, Mr. Rolfe, I feel like a prisoner! Won't you let me come with you?"
"That's impossible," grunted the mate and met Bill Blunt's horrified eye. "Why, lady, d' ye know where we're going and what for?"
"I understand you are going to try to find your captain, of course. But I won't be a burden to you. I'll do just what you tell me, and I may be able to help, if—if—well, you may have wounds or anything, you know. Won't you let me come?—Oh, do take me, Mr. Rolfe. I cannot stay here alone!"
The mate bawled loudly for the tardy guide, as much to conceal his uneasiness as to bring the man, for the gateman was even then chattering voluble instructions to a lithe, breech-clouted native who had just come in. There was nothing he desired less at that moment than to have a woman in the party; yet his stout heart reproached him for designing to leave the girl to her fears. His uncertainty was dispelled for him by the appearance of Mrs. Goring, as fresh and dainty as she had appeared that first day on the dock. She advanced with a smile of greeting, and Miss Sheldon met her eye with a guilty blush.
"I am trying to persuade Mr. Rolfe to take me away with his party," the girl said. "You know how uneasy I have been here, Mrs. Goring, since you are so much away."
"Yes, I know, my dear," the woman replied, and her mature face glowed tenderly. "And unfortunately I cannot avoid being away just now, as you know." She turned her smile upon Rolfe and Bill Blunt, soothing their awkwardness with consummate tact. "Take her, gentlemen, won't you?" she pleaded. "I know it will be all right."