"Very good-looking, I should say, and pulling round quickly. A gentlewoman without doubt."
"And how can ye tell that now? There's many a good-looking hussy that's not gentle-born."
"Undoubtedly," said Wulfrey, looking across the fire at him. "But this isn't one of that kind. She's a lady to the finger-tips."
"Ah—too fine a lady to live on a ship with the likes o' you and me, mebbe," growled the mate. "All same, if't 'adn't bin for me her leddyship ud be no more'n a little white corp tumbling about out yonder in its little white shift."
"Quite so," said Wulfrey, on whom this insistence on his sole claim to the salvaging of her was beginning to pall. "And if it hadn't been for me your bringing her ashore wouldn't have been of much service to her. So suppose we say no more about it. We'll divide the honours."
"If I hadn't brought her ashore ye couldn't have brought her round," growled the mate.
"Six of one and half a dozen of the other."
"No six of anything. Ye can't deny I brought her ashore."
Wulfrey lit his pipe and went up on deck, wondering what was working in the curious fellow's brain now.
When he went down again he found that Macro had opened his bundles and spread their contents out to dry, and had turned in. He just glanced at the varied assortment, and then, not to disturb his patient by going anywhere near her, spread some blankets in the room next to the mate's, and turned in himself. But he lay awake for a long time, wondering if the introduction of this new element into the limited circle of their lives was like to make for peace or otherwise.