Betty had not answered Caleb. She did not even turn her head to follow his movements. She saw only the bruised, pale face before her as she listened to the heavy breathing of the sufferer. She would have dropped from her chair with fatigue and exhaustion but for some new spirit within her which seemed to hold her up, and to keep the fan still in her hand.
When Sanford, after escorting Mrs. Leroy to her home, returned to the improvised hospital, he found the lanterns lighted, and learned that the doctor had dressed the men’s wounds, and had reported everybody on the mend, especially Lacey; at Betty’s urgent request he had made a careful examination of the young rigger’s wounds, and had pronounced him positively out of danger. Only then had she left her post and gone to her own cottage with Caleb.
Captain Joe had followed Aunty Bell home for a few hours’ rest, and all the watchers had been changed.
There was but one exception. Beside the cot upon which lay the sailor with the dislocated hip sat the major, with hat and coat off, his shirt-cuffs rolled up. He was feeding the sufferer from a bowl of soup which he held in his hand. He seemed to enjoy every phase of his new experience. It might have been that his sympathies were more than usually aroused, or it might have been that the spirit of vagabondage within him, which fitted him for every condition in life, making him equally at home among rich and poor, and equally agreeable to both, had speedily brought him into harmony with the men about him. Certainly no newly appointed young surgeon in a charity hospital could have been more entirely absorbed in the proper running of the establishment than was Slocomb in the care of these rough men. He had refused point-blank Mrs. Leroy’s pressing invitation to spend the night at her house, his refusal causing much astonishment to those who misunderstood his reasons.
“I’m going to take charge here to-night, major,” said Sanford, walking toward him, realizing for the first time that he had neglected his friend all day, and with a sudden anxiety as to where he should send him for the night. “Will you go to the hotel and get a room, or will you go to Captain Joe’s cottage? You can have my bed. Mrs. Bell will make you very comfortable for the night.”
The major turned to Sanford with an expression of profound sympathy in his face, hesitated for a moment, and said firmly, with a slight suggestion of wounded dignity in his manner, and in a voice which was sincerity itself, “By gravy, suh, you wouldn’t talk about going to bed if you’d been yere ’most all day, as I have, and seen what these po’ men suffer. My place is yere, suh, an’ yere I’m going to stay.”
Sanford had to look twice before he could trust his own eyes and ears. What was the matter with the Pocomokian?
“But, major,” he continued in protest, determining finally in his mind that some quixotic whim had taken possession of him, “there isn’t a place for you to lie down. You had better get a good night’s rest, and come back in the morning. There’s nothing you can do here. I’m going to sit up with the men myself to-night.”
The major did not even wait for Sanford’s reply. He placed the hot soup carefully on the floor, slipped one hand under the wounded man’s head that he might swallow more easily, and then raised another spoonful to the sufferer’s lips.