AT THE WHEEL
Before Smith had time to recover from his astonishment at Miss Fletcher's remark, the business of placing his broken leg in splints was begun. The operation—no easy one with the ship rolling and lurching incessantly—proved so painful that he swooned before he was able to make any audible comment.
"There," remarked the girl when the difficult task had been accomplished, "it may not be a perfect job, but I think it'll answer till we reach port."
"Heap good doctor pigeon," murmured Sing-hi complacently.
Having made the patient as comfortable as circumstances would permit, the girl left the cabin and stepped into the alleyway. Here she paused for a moment, steadying herself against the bulkhead and gazing at the waves breaking over the bulwarks and flooding the decks knee-deep with a swirling mass of turbid, green water. Then, with an abrupt movement as though she had arrived at some momentous decision, she went to her own cabin and hastily donned sea-boots, oilskins, and sou'-wester. This done, she passed out into the alleyway again, just as the bos'n, with a life-belt strapped over his oilskins, appeared at the entrance, staggering and slithering.
"S'truth!" he ejaculated, "it's 'ell down there."
"Down where?" asked the girl.
The bos'n jerked his head in the direction of the after-hatch.
"In the 'old," he answered. "Jest been down there, and, Gawd, it fair made me sick. Never see'd anything like it since I was aboard a River Plate cattle boat."
"What's the matter there, then?"