Presently he moved out of the cabin, and sat down beside Miss Mallory.
Each had held out a hand to the other, but they had not words.
The place was being made clean within…. The Glow-worm could not be silent, muttered constantly to the Chinese. "… You shall go back to South America with me. I shall be very good to you…. Oh, do open some wine, Boy! I am so very thirsty!" and on, until she saw the face of Framtree, moodily watching. She sank into a chair shuddering, and covered her face. "Don't look at me so horribly!" she cried. "Ask Señorita Mallory about it—ask her about me."
He jerked up, but did not answer at once. The Glow-worm screamed at him to speak.
Framtree crossed the cabin, and dropped his huge hand upon her shaking shoulder.
"I have nothing to say, Señora…. It was a matter between you and him…. But I'm glad to help you. It bowled me over a little, that's all."
His voice was big in the hush that had fallen upon the cabin…. Framtree helped the Chinese carry forth the weighted body…. As it paused for an instant on the gunwale, the searchlight from Jaffier's gunboat flicked athwart the Savonarola—sinister tableaux in its ghostly light…. Without a sound the Glow-worm fell backward to the cabin floor, as if touched by the finger of the Destroying Angel. Bedient worked upon her until consciousness was restored.
"What next in this terrible night?" Miss Mallory asked in an awed voice, when Bedient rejoined her.
"Such an end has hung over him for more years than we have lived," he said. "I call it rather wonderful—as it came about. Hundreds of men will continue to live because of this death. It means an end of war-making, the release of this turbulent spirit."
Bedient turned to the light. She saw the red stain upon the breast of his coat.
He glanced down, and felt in the inner pocket. "It's the red chalk," he said with a laugh. "It got crushed somehow, and it was oily. The forecastle melted it."