“I had a reason, ma’am—to convince you that you should not be here.”
“And pray, sir, what other way would we poor females get to Khemistan?”
“My point precisely, ma’am.” He spoke under difficulties, swaying to and fro and holding fast to the rail. “Khemistan is no place for European females—nor will be for years to come. But when charming ladies take it into their pretty heads to go there, what is poor Hubby to do? ‘My dear, believe me, I can’t take you with me.’ ‘Oh, but you will, won’t you?’ ‘Quite impossible, my dear.’ ‘Ah, but you can do it if you like, I know. And you must.’ And he does—naturally.”
Richard Ambrose chuckled disagreeably, and the colour rose in his wife’s cheeks. “It’s a bachelor y’are, sir, by your own confession,” she said sweetly to the stranger. “No married man would dare to draw such a picture. The best I can wish you is that you may find how true it is!” She meant to end with a little contemptuous curtsey, but the moment she loosed her hold of the shawl over her head, the wind caught it and hurled it full in the stranger’s face. This time he did lose his footing, and went slipping and sliding across the deck till he was brought up by the bulwarks.
“One for you, Crosse!” cried Richard Ambrose loudly, and holding his wife with one hand, secured the loose end of shawl and tucked it in with the other. “Can’t you look after your own fallals?” he demanded. “It ain’t enough to make out that you wanted to come and I couldn’t do without you—eh?”
“I did want to come,” persisted Eveleen stoutly. “And pray would you have me tell people y’are bringing me here for a punishment because you can’t find a keeper in Bombay to look after me?”
“Pray remember you are not a child,” he said—so coldly that she grew red again, and moved as far from him as the necessity of submitting to his protecting arm would allow. But it was difficult to maintain an attitude of dignified displeasure in the circumstances.
“Why, we are anchoring already!” she cried in dismay a moment later. Her husband smiled superior.
“Precisely, my dear. Now you will have an opportunity of experiencing the full pleasure of landing at Bab-us-Sahel. It might be worse, however, for the tide is fairly high.”
Privately Eveleen wondered how low water could possibly make the landing worse, when the passengers and their luggage had been transferred from the rolling steamer to an equally unsteady tug, and thence into large open boats, in which the water seemed terribly near—and actually was, as she discovered on finding the wet mounting higher and higher up her skirts. They were to land at a pier, she knew, which was comforting, but alas! there was another transhipment before reaching it, this time into light canoes, since the boats drew too much water to enter the creek in which it stood. Dazed, shaken, and sea-sick, Eveleen had no pride left. With closed eyes, she leaned her swimming head against her husband’s shoulder as they came into smoother water, and told herself that this misery had lasted so long she would not be surprised if the tide had gone out. What would they do then? she speculated in a detached kind of way—change into some other kind of craft, or paddle up and down and dodge the rollers until the flow?