She released herself with a shriek and struck him hard on the face; a painful and disgusting scene was threatened; Miss Jennings was crying bitterly; I dreaded the madman in Wilfrid, and sprang between them as he grasped his wife’s arm again.
‘For God’s sake, Wilfrid——’ I began, but was silenced by her shrieks. She sent up scream after scream, wrestling with her husband, whose grip of steel I was powerless to relax, and who, with a purple face and a devilish grin of insanity upon his lips, was dragging her towards the door. On a sudden she seemed to suffocate, she beat the air wildly with her arm that was free. Then clapped her hand to her heart, swayed a little, and fell to the deck. I was just in time to save her head from striking the hard plank, and there she lay in a dead faint.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DUEL.
‘This is our chance,’ exclaimed Captain Crimp; ‘she’ll go quietly now. She might have done it afore though. Let’s bear a hand or she’ll be reviving.’
‘Wilfrid, see if our boat’s alongside, will you?’ I cried, anxious to get him out of the way and to correct as far as possible the unmistakable mood of madness that had come upon him with Lady Monson’s insults and blow, by finding him occupation; ‘and send Finn to help us, and let the men stand by ready to receive the lady.’
He cast a look of fury at his wife as she lay motionless on the deck, her head supported on my arm, and sped away in long strides, chattering to himself as he went.
‘Is she dead!’ cried Miss Jennings, in a voice of terror and her ashen face streaming.
‘Bless us, no,’ said I, ‘a downright faint, and thank goodness for it. Now, captain.’
How between us we managed to carry her on deck, I’m sure I do not know. Captain Crimp had her by the feet, I by the shoulders, and Miss Laura helped to keep the apparently lifeless woman’s head to its bearings. She was as limber as though struck by lightning, and the harder to carry for that reason,—a noble figure, as I have said, and deucedly heavy to boot. My part was the hardest, for I had to step backwards and mount the companion ladder, that was almost perpendicular, crab-fashion. The captain and I swayed together, staggering and perspiring, bothered excessively by the ungainly rolling of the barque, both of us nearly dead with heat, and I half suffocated besides by the abominable acid stench from the hold. We were animated, however, into uncommon exertions by the desire to get her over the side before she recovered; and the fear of her awakening and resisting us and shrieking out, and the like, gave us, I reckon, for that particular job the strength of four men. We conveyed her to the gangway, helped by Finn, who received us at the companion hatch, and with infinite pains handed her over the side, still motionless in her swoon, into the boat. A hard task it was; we durst not call out, for fear of reviving her, and the melancholy business was carried through by signs and gestures, topped off with sundry hoarse whispered orders from Finn.