"I do not want any reward," answered Ursula simply; "I only want to do what is right. Suppose it were somebody very dear to me, it would be no sacrifice; and Mrs. Varden is very near and dear to somebody—to her poor young husband. I saw him as he went off the vessel."
"Poor fellow—yes. I fear——" but the Captain pulled up short, and kept the fear to himself. Ursula moved away towards her own cabin.
"I have a few preparations to make; but I shall be ready to-morrow when you send for me. I think I shall not come up any more till then."
She disappeared in the gathering gloom, and the Captain stood looking after her, till a hand was laid upon his arm, and the deep voice of his Australian passenger said in his ear:
"Is that girl going ashore with Mrs. Varden?"
"Yes; she has volunteered, she has all the qualifications for the task; but I don't know now how to let her,—that lonely leper-house,—that awful fear before her eyes. Mrs. Varden will not live the week out. But I dare not keep her on board. My duty to my passengers and to the company prevents it. But those two frail young creatures—set down alone——"
"Look here, Captain, you may make your mind easy there. They won't be alone. I shall get off there too. I shall see them through!"
"You, Mr. Kelly? Why, man, what do you mean? There is no accommodation in the Arab settlement—nothing but the squalid place, and the leper-house beyond. You cannot be in there——"
"No; I shall pitch my tent just beyond, but within sight and sound. Jehoshaphat, man! Do you think I have never roughed it in a tent before this? Do you think I can't speak the primitive language, common to all races, enough to get those dirty Arabs to do all I want of them? Do you think British gold will ever fail to work the will of its master in any quarter of the globe? You go and make all your palaver with the heathen Chinee, or blackguard Arab, or whatever he may be. I'll pitch my tent, and I'll be there as long as any British woman is, and I'll see the thing through. As a nurse I'm no good, even if a rough fellow could volunteer for the task where a lady is in the case. But I'll be hanged, Captain, if Brian Kelly will stand by and see that brave young girl and that poor dying wife left alone in a place like that without a countryman near them. I've nobody specially waiting me in the old country. They've done without me all these years; they can do without me a few weeks longer. I'll see this bit of business through. If those poor creatures die there, I'll stop and give them such Christian burial as is possible; if they live through it, I'll be there to bring them home—one or both. Confound it all, Captain, d'ye think I'd ever know another night's sleep in my bed if I looked on at a bit of heroic devotion like that—and walked on with me hands in me pockets!"
The Captain put out his horny hand and wrung that of his Irish passenger. He had liked Kelly from the first; now he felt a new and warmer feeling towards him.