In returning the skipper’s polite bow she happened to notice the poor wounded sailors lying on the cushions by the companion, and the blood all sprinkled about—a sight at which she turned up her nose, declaring very volubly that the place was like a “pigsty,” unfit for any lady to enter, and expressing her surprise at those “common seamen” being attended to and allowed to remain in the saloon, she having always understood that that apartment was only for “the use of the first-class passengers.”
The skipper, who understood her well enough, as I did too, having learnt the language at a French school near Rouen, was very angry at her remarks.
“Those men,” said he in his best Parisian, “are your own countrymen, all that are left of those who died to preserve the lives of you and your husband there, who ought to be ashamed of himself for skulking below while they were fighting on deck.”
Monsieur looked foolish, but said nothing in reply to this. Madame sniffed, and flashed her glittering black eyes, as if she could annihilate him at a glance.
“My brave Hercules!” she cried indignantly, “be easy. You have been out in the Bois and have established your reputation as a hero and have no need to notice the insulting remarks of this Englishman. But for you,” she added, turning angrily to the colonel, “this would not have happened.”
“I? Good Heavens!” exclaimed Colonel Vereker, greatly astonished at her turning on him thus. “Why, it was I who did all in my power to prevent Captain Alphonse from allowing those cursed blacks on board the ship in the first instance, but you and Monsieur Boisson, both of you, persuaded him to the contrary.”
“My God! dear Hercules, see how we are calumniated,” said the irate Frenchwoman, rather illogically, turning to her miserable atom of a husband, who gesticulated and shrugged his shoulders in response, and looking over the skipper and Colonel Vereker as if neither existed, she went on to remark to Elsie, who, however, did not appear to relish very much her conversation or endearments, that, “some persons whom she would not condescend to name, were, of monsters, the most infamous and ungrateful—men, indeed, of the gutter—but that she, the little one, was an angel.”
Here the skipper put an end to the interview. He had evidently seen and had enough of the Boissons, husband and wife, and, ascending the companion-ladder at the same time as Garry and myself, I heard him muttering to himself as he went along and just caught the following words: “To think—brave men—lose—valuable—save such—theirs—too dreadful. She frivolous—he—a—damned coward!” laying a rather strong emphasis on the last words.
We afterwards went down again, Garry and I, and managed between us to bring up little Mr Johnson, the brave fellow having picked up wonderfully after the attention we had given him, and the knife-thrust he had received from the negro was found to have only grazed his ribs, and he was anxious for fresh air, after his long imprisonment below, and to see and judge for himself how things were looking on deck after our scrimmage.
Here the light was waning and there was a good deal to be done.