Part 24 (2/2)
answered the girl tersely.
”Just my bloomin' bad luck. As if----” he broke off suddenly, a new thought having occurred to him. ”What the devil will the old man do now?
He's been on watch over twenty hours, and there ain't a soul to relieve him. d.y.k.es is on that blighted packet astern--leastways, I suppose he is if she's still afloat--and I'm half corpsed. It's a cheerful look-out and no bloomin' error.”
”Don't worry,” answered the girl calmly as she took the improvised splint from Sing-hi. ”I'll relieve the Captain myself presently.”
”What--you!” And Smith, despite the pain he was suffering, laughed outright. ”Oh my stars, I can see him going below and leaving you in charge of the s.h.i.+p--I don't think.”
”Then the sooner you do think, the better,” retorted the girl cheerfully.
CHAPTER XIX
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 s.h.i.+p 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 circ.u.mstances 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”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?”
”Matter! Why, it's what I said it was just now--'ell. The 'atches are battened down, it's as 'ot as a furnace, and the stink of the bilge water's enough to knock you down. There ain't no light except for a lantern, which don't give no more than a glim, and the air's that thick you could cut it into slabs and 'eave it overboard.”
He was about to turn away when the girl's attire arrested his attention.
”You ain't going on deck?” he said.
”I am.”
”Well, don't you go; you didn't ought to this weather.”
”That's my affair, bos'n.”
”It'll be the skipper's, too, when 'e catches sight of you,” answered the man grimly. ”Still, it ain't no business of mine, and if you wants to try and get drownded, I s'pose you must,” with which philosophical reflection the bos'n proceeded on his way.
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