CHAPTER IX
THE FOG
During the next two days before a moderate gale the Scarrowmania shouldered her way westwards through the big, white-topped combers that rolled down upon her under a lowering sky. There were no luxurious, steam-propelled hotels in the Canadian trade at this time, and loaded deep with railway metal as she was, the vessel slopped in the green seas everywhere, and rolled her streaming sides out almost to her bilge. She shivered and rattled horribly when her single screw swung clear and the tri-compound engines ran away.
Wyllard went down to the steerage every now and then, and Agatha, who contrived to keep on her feet, not infrequently accompanied him. She was glad of his society, for Mrs. Hastings was seldom in evidence, and no efforts could get Miss Rawlinson out of her berth. The gale blew itself out at length, and the evening after it moderated Agatha was sitting near the head of one fiddle-guarded table in the saloon waiting for dinner, which the stewards had still some difficulty in bringing in. Wyllard’s place was next to hers, but he had not appeared, nor had the skipper, who, however, did not invariably dine with the passengers. One of the two doors which led from the foot of the branching companion stairway into either side of the saloon stood open, and presently she saw Wyllard standing just outside it.
He beckoned to the doctor, who sat at the foot of her table, and the physician merely raised his brows a trifle. He was a rather consequential person, and it was evident to the girl that he resented being summoned by a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and she waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign with a lifted hand, and she felt that the doctor would obey it, as, in fact, he did, though his manner was very far from conciliatory. By dint of listening closely, she could hear their conversation.
“I’m sorry to trouble you just now,” apologized Wyllard, “and I didn’t come in because that would have set everybody wondering what you were wanted for; but one of those boys forward has been thrown down the ladder, and has cut his head.”
“Ah!” said the doctor. “I’ll see to him—after dinner.”
“It’s a nasty cut,” declared Wyllard. “He’s losing a good deal of blood.”