She turned her face away and began to retch, but nothing came up beyond a few drops of spittle, bitter and sour.
“Not nice to think on, no,” said Brog. “But nicer than the mind that would bring such a death to the lad; there’s the real, black, stinking hell.”
(The bird of Lalette’s mind felt the bars shift in tighter, she wanted to cry and beat with her hands.) Said Captain Mülvedo; “Ser Brog, I have acquit this demoiselle of direct acts. You will oblige me by not questioning as though the matter were still to decide. If this were the Art, no jurisdiction lies in us.”
“You are my captain, and I am therefore even under your orders, even as to this court of the ship,” said Brog, his thin lips closing sharply. “But I am master of the cargo, of which she forms a part, and it is my province to know what kind of goods I deliver.”
(Lalette had a sense without seeing it directly that the chandelier swung twice as she looked at the three and thought—the truth? But how to explain about the trip, what Tegval had done, how he had demanded the deepest fruit of love as a casual thing like a cup of water, dragging her down?) “Ah, no,” she said in her dying voice, and swallowed again, turning eyes of misery toward the Captain.
He frowned (and she knew it for a frown in her favor, and knew the reason for it and hated him and herself). “Ser Brog,” he said, “I now declare the court shut. This demoiselle is not cargo but a person.”
Brog’s wrinkles ran deeper; the three passed out, the Captain remaining till latest, to pat her hand on the coverlet. Revolt ran through her veins at kindness for the wrong reason, which was worse than hate or anger; there was no understanding in this seaman who only wanted to change bed-partners now and again, she was afloat on a sea of desires.
The daylight swung from powder to deep dusk. One knocked, and it was the gnome-like creature who stewarded for the Captain, who offered her a bowl of broth. The motion of the ship being a trifle easier, she was able to eat a little and hold it, in spite of the shadow that lay across her mind. (But I will not regret, she cried inwardly, and then one-half her mind played critic to the other and cried—no, no. Is there no surcease?) The hours slid by along a silent stream, and she was alone.
III
All movement ceased. Sickness dropped from her like a veil, and from beneath burst such a joy of spirit as Lalette had rarely known, so that she could have sung herself a song, as she almost leaped from her place to put on the new dress. There was no mirror and she had to feel the strands of her hair into the demoiselle’s knot, hoping the result would not look too recklessly wild. Outside the deckhouse, shouts and confused, orderly trampings were toward, but no one came to call for her until long after she had packed everything into the small trunk, with the book Tegval had given her at the bottom. The door was tapped; Brog, followed by a man with a red peaked hat and a fur of sidewhisker, who held an annotation-roll in his hand.