“For Miss Anstrade? It is terrible that she should have fallen ill—terrible. I could have borne anything almost but that. Without a doctor, without a nurse, left to the bungling of two rough men. It will be worse still when she comes to an understanding of her helplessness.”
“You think she will recover? As I watched her this afternoon there came a transparency into her cheeks, and the crease between her brows melted, leaving a face of great calm, scarcely ruffled by a breath.”
“Sorrow kills slowly, Frank. She will overcome this weakness. Do you remember how she stood on the bridge, scorning danger, when we danced down the river and the Captain was alive?”
“And now!”
“Did you hear her call on her brother in the night? So, I thought, would a spirit call upon its partner sent into the outer darkness. Each cry has taken a year off my life, and my heart is weak now from the pain of it. Do you think that my sister also will call like that? I have been thinking that if a storm laid the ship on her beam ends, and whipped the masts from her, and called on us to fight for our lives, it would be a relief.”
Frank laid his hand gently on the Lieutenant’s shoulder.
“Let us pluck up spirit and face the storm that is in us. I, too, had a spell of despair last night till I thought of Captain Pardoe and Mr Dixon. Then I was ashamed of myself. I can see Dixon’s face now as he smiled before he stepped down to his living tomb. What do you think they would say to us if they saw us making so poor a return for their lives?”
“You are right, my lad,” said Webster slowly. “We must remember our duty to them.”
“And to our Commodore.”
“Ay; God bless her!”