But no sooner has the door closed on the retreating pair than Netta
Sheridan, reclining languid and half-dozed on the settee, astonishes
the surgeon and Merritt by suddenly springing to her feet and
exclaiming:
"Oh, save her! Save us!"
Merritt, fatuous youth, once more executes his india-rubber grin,
subsiding instantaneously again into seriousness, and murmurs
faintly, "Gosh!"
"Oh, help me!" cries the girl again--"listen to me--I must speak!"
"Buck up--I mean pray don't be alarmed," exhorts the
assistant-paymaster with a well-meaning effort to say the right
thing; "you're quite all right, you know. It's all over now, you're
perfectly safe!"
"Don't speak to her like that," Dale admonishes him, with a nudge of
his elbow, "you're only frightening her. Miss Sheridan, there is
really no cause for you to disturb yourself. Your cousin has only
gone with your brother into the captain's cabin to tell him about
what has occurred. She will be back in a few minutes. Please sit
down again and rest."
"Oh, you don't understand--you won't understand! Listen, I beg you
listen to me. I cannot bear it any longer. I thought I should be
able to do it, but I can't, oh, I can't!"
"Why, what is the matter," soothingly questions the doctor. "What is
it that you can't do?"
The girl answers him in a quick rush of excited speech:
"It is my brother Patrick who is at the bottom of it all. Ah, the
terrible man he is, indeed! _He_ thought of it, and he _made_ us do
it. I was always against it, but what chance had I? Norah he
persuaded--but you mustn't blame her. And, oh, don't tell her I told
you--and don't let _him_ know it! I am afraid of him, I always have
been. If he tells me to do a thing I have to do it; it has always
been like that. I am afraid to go against him. Oh, stop him
quickly, before it is too late!"
"Ah," says Merritt, shaking his head wisely. "that hot brandy! I
_knew_ it was too much for her!"
"Dry up, you ass," says Dale; and turning again to the distracted
girl asks in the tone of one who wishes to humour an unbalanced
patient:
"But you haven't told us yet what is wrong?"
Surely it is nothing but the delirious ravings of a mind thrown quite
out of gear by suffering to which the poor girl gives vent.
"We're not shipwrecked people at all, we're only--only pretending.
We have not been torpedoed--we were not in any steamer to _be_
torpedoed; we were brought to sea by a motor launch, with the boat
you found us in towing behind. We knew to half an hour what time you
would be passing. Oh, I always said it was a hateful
scheme--_wrong_, too! Is Patrick coming? Don't let him hear
me--don't let him know I have been talking to you. I'm terrified of
him!"
"What _do_ you mean?" cries the puzzled surgeon.
"Patrick planned it all," goes on the girl, now thoroughly wound up
and seemingly not noticing the interruption. "It was his idea
entirely. He arranged everything, even to making us dress--as you
saw us. It is a plot--a plot to blow up your ship!"
"Christmas!" ejaculates Merritt, his mouth wide open in astonishment.
"But it _is_ so, I tell you," cries the girl, turning round upon the
incredulous youth. "You don't know what Patrick is, or how he hates
the English! We all do. _Any_ ship would have done, but we got to
know about yours, we knew just when you would be sailing. It is all
planned out. Norah is to do it. she has the bomb, because Patrick
thought she would have a better chance of putting it somewhere while
he would be talking with the captain and making up a story about the
shipwreck. It is to go off two hours after it is set. Oh, we knew
you would find some means of putting us on shore--though Patrick and
Norah both said they were ready to take their chance of that! Oh, I
cannot stand it any longer! I cannot allow it to be done! Quickly!
Patrick is with your captain at this very moment. Find Norah and
stop her!"
The torrent of wild words that has fallen from the girl's lips
suddenly ceases and leaves her exhausted and collapsed. She reels,
and would fall fainting but for Dale catching her in his strong arms
and lowering her gently to the settee.
"Well, I'm blest!" exclaims the assistant paymaster. "Rum yarn that!
Why, the poor girl must have gone completely off her rocker!"
"And so would you," Dale remarks, "if you had been shipwrecked and
tossed about in an open boat all day like she has! Her nerves are a
little overstrained, that's all. She will forget all about this in a
few days, most likely. Bear a hand, and we'll carry her into my
cabin and let her lie down quietly for a while till the destroyer
comes. It's too stuffy in here, enough to upset anybody!"
"Yes, it is pretty frowsty. No wonder, with such a fire blazing.
And on the top of the hot brandy, too!" So saying, Merritt helps the
doctor to support the unconscious girl, and between them they bear
off their burden to the cooler atmosphere of the surgeon's cabin.
Needless to say, Dale gives no more credence to the poor girl's
ravings than Merritt. He knows, from his professional experience,
how an overstrung imagination can invent the most circumstantial
story and garnish it with a wealth of petty details to give it an air
of truth, insomuch that one would be almost inclined to believe it,
were it not for the fact that the story thus elaborated is usually
wildly improbable to start with. Strange indeed are the tricks that
the mind can play, under the influence of suggestion, even
auto-suggestion.
Dale can remember, from his own experience, a dozen cases no less
curious than this. There is nothing wonderful or unusual about it,
to his trained mind. And as he has a practical task in front of him,
he quickly dismisses all thoughts concerning the vapourings of the
poor girl's disordered brain.