“No need to go to any great trouble for me,” she protested, when I had seated her in Wolf Larsen’s arm-chair, which I had dragged hastily from his cabin. “The men were looking for land at any moment this morning, and the vessel should be in by night; don’t you think so?”
Her simple faith in the immediate future took me aback. How could I explain to her the situation, the strange man who stalked the sea like Destiny, all that it had taken me months to learn? But I answered honestly:
“If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would be ashore in Yokohama to-morrow. But our captain is a strange man, and I beg of you to be prepared for anything—understand?—for anything.”
“I—I confess I hardly do understand,” she hesitated, a perturbed but not frightened expression in her eyes. “Or is it a misconception of mine that shipwrecked people are always shown every consideration? This is such a little thing, you know. We are so close to land.”
“Candidly, I do not know,” I strove to reassure her. “I wished merely to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come. This man, this captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what will be his next fantastic act.”
I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an “Oh, I see,” and her voice sounded weary. To think was patently an effort. She was clearly on the verge of physical collapse.
She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, devoting myself to Wolf Larsen’s command, which was to make her comfortable. I bustled about in quite housewifely fashion, procuring soothing lotions for her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen’s private stores for a bottle of port I knew to be there, and directing Thomas Mugridge in the preparation of the spare state-room.
The wind was freshening rapidly, the Ghost heeling over more and more, and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing through the water at a lively clip. I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach and Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, “Boat ho!” came down the open companion-way. It was Smoke’s unmistakable voice, crying from the masthead. I shot a glance at the woman, but she was leaning back in the arm-chair, her eyes closed, unutterably tired. I doubted that she had heard, and I resolved to prevent her seeing the brutality I knew would follow the capture of the deserters. She was tired. Very good. She should sleep.
There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a slapping of reef-points as the Ghost shot into the wind and about on the other tack. As she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair began to slide across the cabin floor, and I sprang for it just in time to prevent the rescued woman from being spilled out.
Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepy surprise that perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she half stumbled, half tottered, as I led her to her cabin. Mugridge grinned insinuatingly in my face as I shoved him out and ordered him back to his galley work; and he won his revenge by spreading glowing reports among the hunters as to what an excellent “lydy’s-myde” I was proving myself to be.