Part 22 (1/2)
You have skulked in the after house, behind women, when there was man's work to do. If I wash that deck, it will be with you as a mop.”
He bl.u.s.tered something about speaking to Mr. Turner and seeing that I did the work I was brought on board to do, and, seeing Turner's eye on us, finished his speech with an ugly epithet. My nerves were strained to the utmost: lack of sleep and food had done their work. I was no longer in command of the Ella; I was a common sailor, ready to vent my spleen through my fists.
I knocked him down with my open hand.
It was a barbarous and a reckless thing to do. He picked himself up and limped away, muttering. Turner had watched the scene with his cold blue eyes, and the little doctor with his near-sighted ones.
”A dangerous man, that!” said the doctor.
”Dangerous and intelligent,” replied Turner. ”A bad combination!”
It was late that night when the Ella anch.o.r.ed in the river at Philadelphia. We were not allowed to land. The police took charge of s.h.i.+p, crew, and pa.s.sengers. The men slept heavily on deck, except Burns, who developed a slight fever from his injury, and moved about restlessly.
It seemed to me that the vigilance of the officers was exerted largely to prevent an escape from the vessel, and not sufficiently for the safety of those on board. I spoke of this, and a guard was placed at the companionway again. Thus I saw Elsa Lee for the last time until the trial.
She was dressed, as she had been in the afternoon, in a dark cloth suit of some sort, and I did not see her until I had spoken to the officer in charge. She turned, at my voice, and called me to join her where she stood.
”We are back again, Leslie.”
”Yes, Miss Lee.”
”Back to--what? To live the whole thing over again in a courtroom! If only we could go away, anywhere, and try to forget!”
She had not expected any answer, and I had none ready. I was thinking--Heaven help me--that there were things I would not forget if I could: the lift of her lashes as she looked, up at me; the few words we had had together, the day she had told me the deck was not clean; the night I had touched her hand with my lips.
”We are to be released, I believe,” she said, ”on our own--some legal term; I forget it.”
”Recognizance, probably.”
”Yes. You do not know law as well as medicine?”
”I am sorry--no; and I know very little medicine.”
”But you sewed up a wound!”
”As a matter of fact,” I admitted, ”that was my initial performance, and it is badly done. It--it puckers.”
She turned on me a trifle impatiently.
”Why do you make such a secret of your ident.i.ty?” she demanded. ”Is it a pose? Or--have you a reason for concealing it?”
”It is not a pose; and I have nothing to be ashamed of, unless poverty--”
”Of course not. What do you mean by poverty?”
”The common garden variety sort. I have hardly a dollar in the world.
As to my ident.i.ty,--if it interests you at all, I graduated in medicine last June. I spent the last of the money that was to educate me in purchasing a dress suit to graduate in, and a supper by way of celebration. The dress suit helped me to my diploma. The supper gave me typhoid.”