“No ship,” said Blumpitty in a sepulchral whisper, “no ship could make a man feel like this.”
Hildegarde was alarmed. Was Mr. Blumpitty about to be snatched from them by some fell disease?
“Wh-what do you think it is?” she inquired, with another lurch, but much sympathy.
He clung now with both hands to his savior-knob, while the rolling Roumelia worked her own wild will upon Mr. Blumpitty’s contorted frame. “It’s the cook,” he groaned.
“The cook!” This was indeed terrible! His brain was giving way!
“Yes,” he went on hoarsely in an interval of comparative steadiness, “I know these fellows. If a sea-cook thinks he’s got too many people to feed—he—oh, Gawd!—he puts stuff in the coffee, or soap in the bread—and—people don’t want to eat any more.”
Roumelia resented this aspersion upon her son. She shot Mr. Blumpitty forward with extreme violence, and he, entirely without volition, found himself going on deck. But perhaps the same force that took him up brought him down and put him to bed, for Hildegarde saw him no more.
Over her further descent into that part of the ship she had been intended to occupy, it is considerate to draw a veil.
She reappeared like a mourner at a funeral, following at Ruth’s side in the wake of a figure borne on a mattress between a steward and the giant. The prostrate form of poor Mis’ Bumble Bee, speechless, blind, deaf, was laid in the one sheltered corner of the deck. Ruth, very weak and unsteady, went back to that fetid under-world that beggared description, ministering to miserable men and women lying helpless on shelves, tier above tier to the ceiling. Even to be down there for five minutes was a thing to be remembered shuddering as long as one lived.
After putting her cushion under Mrs. Blumpitty’s head, Hildegarde glanced round.