“But you can’t go on the bridge, miss; it’s against orders.” And the stalwart quartermaster barred with his substantial form the steps leading up to the bridge.
“But I must see the captain, and I will. Do you hear? Let me pass,” with a quick stamp of the foot.
Seen by the electric lights the speaker was a well-formed, beautiful girl, her face pale, and her eyes glowing with excitement and purpose. Behind her, a little in the background, buzzed a throng of excited passengers.
“Very sorry, miss, but it can’t be done,” reaffirmed the quartermaster, not without misgivings, for the speaker was a favourite on board, and not a little so with the captain himself, a grizzled and, withal, crusty salt, of whom those under him stood considerably in awe. “If there were any message now, miss, I might make so bold as to take it,” he added conciliatorily.
“Message? Message? No; I must tell him myself,” came the quick rejoinder, accompanied by another stamp of the foot. “Let me up! Man, man, a life—lives—depend on it—at any rate one.”
The seaman gave way, resigning himself to a “logging,” and, perchance, other pains and penalties. In a moment the girl had gained the bridge. The captain and two of the officers turned in anger, which subsided on the part of the latter as they saw the identity of the intruder. The first still looked grim.
“Well, young lady?” he began in a voice that would have sent most of the other passengers down double quick with a stuttered apology, but with this one it went for nothing.
“Captain, that ship we just ran into—there was someone on board.”
The captain looked grimmer still. “Just ran into” had a characteristically ugly sound in his ears.
“Humph!” he snorted. “Just ran into! Just ran into! That infernal old blasted derelict hulk, whose owners ought to be—” And then he remembered the sex and identity of the speaker, and with a gulp went on. “Now, how the—how the—well, how d’you make out there’s anyone on board her?” he rapped out in a sort of subdued hurricane blast of a voice.