"But Mr. Yoxall will be taking the next watch, won't he?" she asked, renewed doubt and distrust in her tired eyes.
The promoted Portuguese quartermaster shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.
"You and I must stand watch and watch for a little, Miss Sallie," he told her with a self-satisfied smirk. "The chief mate is sick—of a fever. That Hobson he is already dead and over the side. And Captain Dove has sent order that he is not to be disturbed—unless necessary. He is broke down, he says, with illness and worry."
"Wait a minute, then, Mr. Da Costa," she said, so imperatively that he halted and let her pass. "I won't be long, and then I'll stay on duty till evening."
She hurried below by the stairway behind the chart-house, and went straight along the alleyway to Reuben Yoxall's room. She was very much alarmed; she knew how sudden and deadly the dreaded West African fever could be. She did not doubt that the wretched Hobson had fallen a victim to it.
All was quiet within the chief mate's room. She knocked gently, and the door was opened almost at once. A young man in an ill-fitting, coal-blackened suit of blue dungaree looked inquiringly out at her and then frowned.
"Keep to the other side of the passage, please," he requested crisply. "This room's in strict quarantine, and the risk of infection—"
"Oh, never mind about that," she broke in. "It's no worse for me than for you. And I must speak to Rube—Mr. Yoxall. Is he very bad? How did you—"
She had recognised him by his voice. Without his horrible mask he looked so much younger than she had supposed him that she had at first wondered who he could be, although his keen, resolute face was haggard and lined, his pale lips dreadfully drawn at the corners, and hideous remembrances still seemed to lurk behind his steady grey eyes.
"He's asleep at present—and pretty bad," said the stranger sorrowfully. "I had to give him an opiate. I volunteered to look after him—which was the very least I could do. There was no one else who knew anything, and, although I'm not a doctor, I know some of the tricks of the trade.