In the berth behind the curtains some one was moving. The room was practically in darkness, since the open port was also screened, to shut out the searching sun. But, in spite of all such precautions, the heat was almost unbearable.
The curtains parted slightly and from their opening a face peered out at her, the blandly benevolent face of a mild-looking, white-haired old man who, at a casual glance, might perhaps have passed for a clergyman or a missionary.
But in an instant a most disconcerting change came over his features. Some dormant devil seemed to have wakened within him and was glaring out at the girl from behind evil, red-rimmed eyes. His appearance then might have frightened a man away. But she stood her ground undismayed.
No less suddenly he broke into a torrent of fierce abuse, freely interspersed with blood-curdling, old-fashioned oaths. And that was only stemmed by a frantic paroxysm of coughing which left a crimson froth about the white stubble upon his chin. He fell back into the gloom behind the curtains, as if he would choke.
The girl hurriedly filled a glass with water from a carafe on a rack at one side of the room, pulled the curtains apart, and held it to the sick man's lips. He sipped at it and then struck it away so that most of its contents spilled on her skirts.
"Would you poison me now, you witch!" he gasped, and then, regaining his voice a little, "Ambrizette," he called weakly, with a quavering imprecation, "brandy. Bring me the bottle. Your mistress has poisoned me."
A coloured woman, stunted, misshapen, almost inconceivably ugly, came shambling in with a bottle, which he snatched eagerly from her and set to his lips, while she made off again, in very evident dread of him. The colour came back to his face, and at last he laid it aside, with a sigh of relief.
"The men have broken out, have they?" he muttered, half to himself. "And you come to me to ask what's to be done!" He glowered down at one of his arms which lay across his chest in a sling and tightly bandaged. His voice once more became venomous. "It's your fault that I'm lying here," he snarled. "You and your bully Yoxall have taken charge of my ship between you. Why don't the two of you tackle them? What the Seven Stars d'ye think I care now whether you sink or swim!"
She turned away from him with a little, tired, hopeless gesture.
"I don't care very much, either, now," she answered, dully, "what happens to me. But—it's you they're after, Captain Dove, and there isn't a moment to spare. They've got the guns up already."