It came as a shock to me. I had a vague sensation of his fears. Up till
then I hadn’t realized that any one could be much interested in Mrs.
Cowper.
He caught hold of my arm, as if he wanted support, and stuttered:
“Couldn’t you--couldn’t you speak to------” He nodded in the direction
of Tomas Castro, who was bent and shouting down the hatch. “Try
to-------” the old man gasped. “Didn’t you hear the child scream?” His
face was pallid and wrinkled, like a piece of crumpled paper; his mouth
was drawn on one side, and his lips quivered one against the other.
I went to Castro and caught him by the arm. He spun round and smiled
discreetly.
“We shall be using force upon you directly. Pray resist, Señor; but not
too much. What? His wife? Tell that stupid Inglez with whispers that she
is safe.” He whispered with an air of profound intelligence, “We shall
be ready to go as soon as these foul swine have finished their stealing.
I cannot stop them,” he added.
I could not pause to think what he might mean. The child’s shrieks
resounding louder and louder, I ran below. There were a couple of men
in the cabin with the women. Mrs. Cowper was lying back upon a sofa,
her face very white and drawn, her eyes wide open. Her useless hands
twitched at her dress; otherwise she was absolutely motionless, like a
frozen woman. The black nurse was panting convulsively in a corner--a
palpitating bundle of orange and purple and white clothes. The child was
rushing round and round, shrieking. The two men did nothing at all. One
of them kept saying in Spanish:
“But--we only want your rings. But--we only want your rings.”
The other made feeble efforts to catch the child as it rushed past him.
He wanted its earrings--they were contraband of war, I suppose.
Mrs. Cowper was petrified with terror. Explaining the desires of the two
men was like shouting things into the ear of a very deaf woman. She kept
on saying:
“Will they go away then? Will they go away then?” All the while she was
drawing the rings off her thin fingers, and handing them to me. I gave
them to the ruffians whose presence seemed to terrify her out of her
senses. I had no option. I could do nothing else. Then I asked her
whether she wished me to remain with her and the child. She said:
“Yes. No. Go away. Yes. No--let me think.”
Finally it came into my head that in the captain’s cabin she would be
able to talk to her husband through the deck ventilator, and, after a
time, the idea filtered through to her brain. She could hardly walk at
all. The child and the nurse ran in front of us, and, practically, I
carried her there in my arms. Once in the stateroom she struggled loose
from me, and, rushing in, slammed the door violently in my face. She
seemed to hate me.