“You feel sure that we shall see no more of the Indians?” asked Isobel, quickly.
“I think so. One never can tell, but if they have the grit to attack us again I shall regard them as first-class fighters.”
“Dr. Christobal says they have an astonishing power of bearing pain without flinching,” said Elsie, plunging into the talk with a hot eagerness. “The Alaculofs in the fore cabin were afraid of him, thinking he meant to kill them, but, when they found that he wished only to dress their wounds, they followed his actions with a curious interest, as though he were tending some other person’s hurts and not their own. And that reminds me. He told me you ought to have that cut on your forehead washed. Let me look at it.”
She stood up, and placed the dog on a chair. Lifting Courtenay’s cap she brushed back his hair with her fingers, and found that he had covered an ugly scar with a long strip of skin plaster. The tense anxiety in Isobel’s face forthwith yielded to sheer bewilderment. These two were behaving with the self-possession of young people who regard the “engagement” stage as a venerable institution.
Of course Courtenay liked to be fondled in this manner. Elsie was at her best as a ministering angel. But he protested against the need of the doctor’s precaution.
“No, no,” he cried, “you already have one faithful patient in Joey. I wonder he did not wake me earlier so that he might rush off to you. I never have known him play the old soldier before. To see him curled up there, gazing at you with those pathetic eyes, who would think that his teeth met in Alaculof sinews last night? Twice, to my knowledge, he saved my life. And the way he dodged blows aimed at him was something marvelous. He used all four paws then, I assure you.”
“Ah, yes,” agreed Elsie, blushing again as she recalled the scene in the saloon. “He could have told me the Indians were aboard long before I knew it myself. Dr. Christobal deceived me so admirably that I am not sure yet if I have forgiven him.”
“He is a first-rate chap in an emergency,” said Courtenay, “though I have a bone to pick with him, too. He promised to call me at eight o’clock, but I expect he and Boyle, or Tollemache, conspired to let me sleep on. I was astounded when I saw the time. What do you think of a skipper who lies abed all the morning, Miss Baring?”
“Gray has told him nothing,” she decided at once. “That is very nice of Gray. I must thank him.” But she replied instantly, in her piquant way:
“Elsie certainly kept us in the dark about her fiançailles, Captain Courtenay; but has not been silent as to your other achievements. If you were not telling us that you have actually slept, I should have cherished the belief that you had not closed an eyelid since the ship struck.”