And think ’twould lead to some bright isle of rest.’”
Nina murmured an assent, and the silence was not again broken until they heard the “quaintly musical tramp” and the cheery voices of the sailors as they marched over the deck outside to take the hourly log.
They called out the number of knots they were making; then their footsteps died away, and quietness again reigned, broken only by the gentle lapping of the waves against the side of the ship.
“Only a plank between us and death,” said Miss Marsden, with a shudder; and she incited the meditative Nina to a discussion of their chances of escape in case of accident, fire, or shipwreck. Their conjectures were brought to a premature close by hearing, in a manly voice, “Yes, I acknowledge that Mrs. Fordyce is not bad looking, but she is too unformed for my taste. I like a woman with a little more savoir faire than that baby-faced girl will ever have. Miss Marsden is a woman after my own heart. Her pretty pale face set off by those bands of dark hair is absolutely charming; and her repose of manner is faultless. I wonder what her first name is?”
For the next few seconds Miss Marsden and Nina carried on a dialogue composed, like that of Butler’s Spaniards, of “heads and shoulders, nods and shrugs.” They communicated to each other the intelligence that Captain Eversleigh was at the open window of his room next the ladies’ cabin; and owing to the calmness of the sea and the lack of noise about the ship, they could hear nearly every word he said.
Though convinced that they were not doing a perfectly honourable thing, they had not the necessary strength of mind to close the window. The prospect of learning their neighbour’s opinion of them was too alluring.
So they were all ears as Captain Eversleigh continued, “Stupid man, I know the little girl’s name fast enough. Haven’t I heard her husband growl a dozen proprietary ‘Ninas?’ When I said ‘her,’ I meant Miss Marsden. What did that dicer Delessert say is the name of the fellow that jilted her?”
Miss Marsden went through a pantomime of dumb wrath. Now she could make common cause with Nina against the panther who had been gossiping about her recreant lover. The tall youth Maybury was with Captain Eversleigh, and evidently was either sharing his window as Nina was sharing Miss Marsden’s, or was at a second one; for his boyish tones of mock wrathfulness clearly floated to them.
“Seek out the villain, pick a quarrel with him, beat him to a jelly for his heartlessness.”
Nina laughed under her breath, and by means of lip movement announced her surprise at this unbending of the tall, usually wordless youth.