“George mustn’t be allowed to risk his life, you know.”
She recoiled with a sudden wilting, as a child before an unexpected
blow.
“Oh!” she moaned. “Oh! How can you?”
My weakness forced me to clutch the wall for support.
“I can’t,” I said, “unless you get me some whisky.”
She was still shrinking, her hands to her breast, and her face white.
“Oh! I didn’t know—I couldn’t believe—there was anything like—like
this in you.”
“Hidden country,” I laughed, stumbling along the wall. “There’s hidden
country in all of us.”
My hand was on the door of George’s stateroom. I pushed it open.
Simmons was lying in George’s bed, a horrified expression upon his
wooden-like countenance as he viewed his surroundings.
“Not my fault, sir,” he apologized as I betrayed surprise at seeing
him there. “I was put here, sir; I couldn’t help it.”
“Glory be, Simmons! You’re looking sound.”
“Oh, I’m doing nicely, thank you, sir. A bit shot off the bottom of my
liver, sir, the doctor says. I’ll do, says he, thank you.”
A revolver was lying on a table and I picked it up. It was loaded.
“Whisky, Simmons! Where is it? I’ve got to have some, quick.”
He grimaced guiltily.
“I—I had a tiny bottle in my coat, sir. It’s lying over there. If the
bottle isn’t smashed—ah! The master’s silver flask, so it was. I—I had
a bit of cold, sir, and there was no other bottle——”
I drank the stuff like water. My veins, which had felt empty and
slack, seemed to fill with warm blood.
I drank again. My legs stiffened and grew firm. My head was in a
whirl, but I had strength enough to move easily now, and I went out of
the room with a rush. Betty tried to stop me as I went through the
saloon, but I lurched on.
The sound of firing came to me as if from far away. In the whirl of my
head it seemed first in one direction then in another. I steadied
myself for an instant as I came out on deck. The yacht seemed to be
heaving and falling, and presently it felt as if it were whirling in a
maelstrom.
Where was the aft? Where was the firing? I held my head to steady it.
The firing broke out afresh. There it was! It was in front of me. No,
it was behind me. A non-drinker shouldn’t take so much whisky. Ah!
There it was. I lurched forward, intending to go aft. It was not
strange that I should cross the fore-deck on my way aft. Nothing was
strange in my present condition. Not even the fact that Brack and
Garvin were climbing over the rail at the bow, as I came forward.