Morgan almost pitched head foremost into the wardrobe as his clumsy fingers fumbled at the hook on the door. He righted himself, squeezed outside, and called to Valvick to follow.
There was something caught there. It was small and broken-looking, snapped between the jamb and the heavy door — a woman fallen forward across a sill six inches high. She wore no hat, and her dishevelled brown hair, which had tumbled down along one side, blew wildly in the draught. They could not see her face. Her hands, flung forward out of the sleeves of a green, fur-edged coat, were groping in weak movements — horribly, as though she were tapping at the keys of a piano. The head and body rolled with the ship. As they did, a splashing of blood ran thinly along the rubber matting of the floor.
With his shoulder, Morgan forced the door wide while Captain Valvick picked the woman up. Then the door boomed shut once more with a cessation of draught that made them shiver.
"Dat blood," said Valvick, suddenly, in a low voice. "Look! It iss from her nose. She been hit on de back off de head… "
Her head lay limply in the crook of the captain's arm; and he moved his arm as though with a notion he must not touch her there. She was a sturdy, wiry girl with thick eyebrows and long lashes — not unattractive under a pallor that made her rouge stand out, but with one of those straight Greek-coin faces which have a look of heaviness rather than beauty. Her throat quivered as the head lolled over. Breathing raspingly, with eyes squeezed shut, she seemed to be trying to move her lips.
"In here," Warren's voice said in a whisper from the door of the dark cabin. They carried her in, a trembling
Peggy making way for them, laid her down on the berth, and switched on the dim lamp inside. Morgan closed the door.
Peggy was very pale, but with some sudden mechanical Impulse she seized a towel off the rack and wiped the blood from the nose and mouth of the inert girl.
"Who — who is she? What—?"
"Get some whisky," said the captain, curtly. Blinking his pale blue eyes, he puffed slowly through his moustache; there was a scowl on his face as he ran one finger along the base of the woman's skull. "Ay dunno, but she may be hurt bad. Ha! Turn her on de side, and you wet de cloths. Ay haff to know somet'ing of what de doctor know because dere is no doctor on de cargo-boat… Ha! Maybe—"