"Is the door from the galley to the main deck locked and nailed up, Billie?" I asked of the flunky.
"Yes, sir."
"Nail planks across the window too. Philips will help you get dinner if you can find him. I'll expect you to see that our party is well fed."
"Yes, sir," the young fellow promised.
"You must go to your room at a moment's notice, Miss Wallace. Have Philips nail up your porthole. You need not be a bit afraid. We hold a very safe position at present. Get all the sleep you can to-night."
"That's good advice, Mr. Sedgwick. Take it yourself," she returned with a little flicker of a wan smile.
For an instant her hand, warm and firm, rested in mine. If I had not been sure of my love before, there was no uncertainty now. While her brave eyes met mine I seemed to drown fathoms deep in the blue of them. Trouble was what I read in them, but part of that trouble was for me. I gloried in that certainty.
She might not love me—it was presumptuous to suppose she did—but at least I held a place in her regard. That was the thought I carried with me down-stairs, and it stayed pleasantly with me till I fell asleep in spite of the pain in my arm.
About nine o'clock I was awakened by a knock on the door. Philips had brought me dinner on a tray.
His eye would not meet mine. He was ashamed because he had shown the white feather in the scrimmage.