"Here I am," I cried. "I am coming." Then, when I turned to speak to the girl, I saw that she had gone.
I stepped off the porch, tripped, stumbled to my knees, got up again, and strode so recklessly down through the dark to the river that, before I knew I had reached it, I was ankle-deep in water.
"Well, my man," cried Gideon North, "you seem to be in a hurry now, though you were long enough starting."
Without a word, I got into the boat and took off my shoes and poured out the water. It irritated me to see Arnold looking at me keenly and yet with gentle amusement. I had come to have no small respect for Arnold's unusual insight.
All the way back to the brig my head was in such a whirl that, for the first time in my waking moments since we left Cuba, I completely forgot the one fundamental object for which we three were working, to save as far as possible poor Seth Upham and his property from the hands of Cornelius Gleazen and his fellows. Instead I kept hearing the voice that had said, "You're not of their kind," kept seeing the face that I had seen there in the dim light—not at all clearly, yet clearly enough to see that it had a sweet dignity and that it was good to look upon.
The boat bumping against the brig woke me from my dreams. Scrambling aboard, I left my shoes in the galley to dry by the stove and ran aft in my stocking feet, and down below. In my eagerness to get dry shoes and stockings I quite outstripped the others, who were loitering in the gangway.
It was with no thought or intention of surprising the four men in the cabin that I burst in upon them on my way to my own stateroom. They had pushed cards and chips to one side of the table and had gathered closely round it. In the centre, where their four heads almost met, was a handful of rough stones, which for all I knew might have been quartz.
That I had done anything to anger them, when I came down so unceremoniously, I was entirely unaware; but O'Hara, the newcomer, sweeping the stones together with a curse, covered them with his hands; Gleazen faced about and angrily stared at my stockinged feet; and Matterson, rising in fury, snarled through his teeth, "You sniveling, sneaking, prying son of a skulking sea-cook, I swear I'll have your heart's blood!"
Before I could turn, the man dived at me straight across the table. I raised my hands to fend him off, with the intention of shoving his head into the floor and planting my feet on the back of his neck; stepped back, tripped and fell. I saw Gleazen lift a chair to bring it down on my head—even then I thought of the irony of my being his "lieutenant"! I saw that wild Irishman, Bud O'Hara, laughing like a fiend at my plight. Then I flung up my feet to receive the blow, and seizing the legs of the chair, twisted it over between Matterson and myself, and got up on my knees. Then in came the others.