“No wonder. She really hasn’t any right to be alive after what she went through. Have you done anything for her?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I took her into the social hall and laid her on the sofa and got some whiskey for her, but I couldn’t get her to take it, and she looked so horrible and——” He paused, evidently shaken.
Howard stretched up his hand.
“I must see her,” he declared. “I’m pretty shaky still, but if you’ll give me a lift I’ll try to scramble up beside you and then we’ll see what we can do.” He took the hand that Jackson offered. “Now brace yourself,” he warned. “All set?”
Jackson nodded, and Howard, after an experimental tug or two, put forth all his strength and drew himself up to the other’s side.
“That’s good,” he remarked. “I guess we’re both worth a dozen dead men yet. By the way, how did you get the girl up here?”
Jackson showed more animation than he had yet done.
“The deck wasn’t so steep when I moved her,” he explained. “It tilted worse just as I got her inside. I thought at first we were going down, but we didn’t.”
Howard stepped inside the social hall—which had never before so belied its name—and looked around him. After the bright light of the deck, the room seemed dark, and for a moment he could see nothing. Then he caught a glimpse of something lying on the big athwartship sofa, and scrambled over to it.
A girl lay there in a crumpled heap. In her rich golden brown hair alone was any touch of color. Her eyes were closed and her lips blue. Her cheeks were so bloodless that it seemed impossible that she still lived.