Part 18 (2/2)
I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamations broke out on all sides The boat contained four og with excitement, all except Wolf Larsen, as too evidently disappointed in that it was not his own boat with the two victi jib, hauled the jib-sheets to ard and the main-sheet flat, and came up into the wind The oars struck the water, and with a few strokes the boat was alongside I now caughtulster, for thebut her face and afroe and brown and lustrous, the mouth sweet and sensitive, and the face itself a delicate oval, though sun and exposure to briny wind had burnt the face scarlet
She see fro for her, as of a starving man for bread But then, I had not seen a woreat wonder, alotthe new-comers aboard For when one of the sailors lifted her into Wolf Larsen's downstretched arms, she looked up into our curious faces and smiled amusedly and sweetly, as only a wo that I had forgotten such smiles existed
”Mr Van Weyden!”
Wolf Larsen's voice brought me sharply back to myself
”Will you take the lady below and see to her comfort? Make up that spare port cabin Put Cooky to work on it And see what you can do for that face It's burned badly”
He turned brusquely away froan to question the new h one of them called it a ”bloody shaely afraid of this wo aft Also I ard It see for the first tiht her arm to help her down the companion stairs, I was startled by its smallness and softness Indeed, she was a slender, delicate woo, but to me she was so ethereally slender and delicate that I was quite prepared for her arrasp All this, in frankness, to show eneral and of Maud Brewster in particular
”No need to go to any great trouble for me,” she protested, when I had seated her in Wolf Larsen's ared hastily fro for land at any ht; don't you think so?”
Her simple faith in the immediate future took e man who stalked the sea like Destiny, all that it had taken me months to learn? But I answered honestly:
”If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would be ashore in Yokoha of you to be prepared for anything-understand?-for anything”
”I-I confess I hardly do understand,” she hesitated, a perturbed but not frightened expression in her eyes ”Or is it a misconception of mine that shi+pwrecked people are always shown every consideration? This is such a little thing, you know We are so close to land”
”Candidly, I do not know,” I strove to reassure her ”I wished merely to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come This man, this captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell ill be his next fantastic act”
I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an ”Oh, I see,” and her voice sounded weary To think was patently an effort She was clearly on the verge of physical collapse
She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no re myself to Wolf Larsen's command, which was to make her comfortable I bustled about in quite housewifely fashi+on, procuring soothing lotions for her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen's private stores for a bottle of port I knew to be there, and directing Thoe in the preparation of the spare state-roo over more and more, and by the tih the water at a lively clip I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach and Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, ”Boat ho!” came down the open co frolance at the wo back in the arm-chair, her eyes closed, unutterably tired I doubted that she had heard, and I resolved to prevent her seeing the brutality I kneould follow the capture of the deserters She was tired Very good She should sleep
There were swift co of reef-points as the Ghost shot into the wind and about on the other tack As she filled away and heeled, the ar for it just in ti spilled out
Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepy surprise that perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she half sturinned insinuatingly in alley work; and he won his revenge by spreading glowing reports a the hunters as to what an excellent ”lydy's-ainst ain between the arm-chair and the state-roo a sudden lurch of the schooner She aroused, sain; and asleep I left her, under a heavy pair of sailor's blankets, her head resting on a pillow I had appropriated from Wolf Larsen's bunk
CHAPTER XIX
I ca up close on the port tack and cutting in to ard of a familiar spritsail close-hauled on the same tack ahead of us All hands were on deck, for they knew that soed aboard
It was four bells Louis came aft to relieve the wheel There was a dampness in the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins