“Lena,” he cried, “don’t parade it before everybody;” but as he turned his eyes with an irritable look to the lady and encountered hers, a change came over him, and he clung to my arm, which he had thrust away.
“Thank you,” he said. “Give me a hand to the side there. My legs are shaky yet.” Then with a smile which made his thin yellow face light up, and gave him something the look of his sister, as he glanced at my uniform—“You’re not the captain, are you? Ah, that’s better,” he sighed, as he leaned his arms on the bulwark, and drew a deep breath. “Thank you. Just wait till we’ve been a month at sea, and I’ll race you all through the rigging.”
“All right,” I said, “you shall. My father says there’s nothing like a sea trip when you’ve been ill. He took me in his yacht after I had had fever.”
“And you got well in no time, didn’t you?”
I nodded, as I looked at his wasted figure, and noted his eager, anxious way.
“There, Lena, hear that,” he said quickly. “I told you so.” Then turning to me again—“Come and sit near us in the cabin; I shan’t be so nasty and snappish when I’ve had my breakfast.”
He laughed in a forced way, and promising that I would if I could, I drew back to leave the brother and sister together, for Walters gave my jacket a twitch.
“I say, I shall never get you round the ship,” he said, in an ill-used tone. “Now look here,” he began, “this is the saloon-deck, that’s the mizzen-mast, and come along here and I’ll show you the binnacle.”
“Why, I know all these,” I said, laughing merrily. “Come, I’ll box the compass with you.”
“Tuppens as you can’t do it right, young gent,” said a rough-looking elderly sailor, who was coiling down the rope which had nearly overset the sick passenger.