UNMASKED
Sallie sat up in her disordered cot with a start of alarm when
Ambrizette came in to wake her, as she had directed before she lay down.
She had scarcely slept at all amid dreadful dreams, and was still very
weary, both body and mind. She had not yet had time to forget the
horrors of over-night.
But she had no desire to dwell on them, and--there was the day's work
awaiting her. Twenty minutes later she was on her way to the bridge, to
relieve Da Costa.
That was not the first occasion, by many, on which she had had to fill a
man's place. For Captain Dove had trained her to all the
responsibilities of the sea. Da Costa touched his cap obsequiously to
her and gave her the course, which she repeated after him, with
mechanical precision.
As he turned to go, yawning wearily, "If you'll send and have me woke
out again whenever you feel like it, Miss Sallie," he said with an
ingratiating flourish, "I'll--"
"But Mr. Yoxall will be taking the next watch, won't he?" she asked,
renewed doubt and distrust in her tired eyes.
The promoted Portuguese quartermaster shrugged his shoulders and spread
out his hands.
"You and I must stand watch and watch for a little, Miss Sallie," he
told her with a self-satisfied smirk. "The chief mate is sick--of a
fever. That Hobson he is already dead and over the side. And Captain
Dove has sent order that he is not to be disturbed--unless necessary. He
is broke down, he says, with illness and worry."
"Wait a minute, then, Mr. Da Costa," she said, so imperatively that he
halted and let her pass. "I won't be long, and then I'll stay on duty
till evening."
She hurried below by the stairway behind the chart-house, and went
straight along the alleyway to Reuben Yoxall's room. She was very much
alarmed; she knew how sudden and deadly the dreaded West African fever
could be. She did not doubt that the wretched Hobson had fallen a victim
to it.
All was quiet within the chief mate's room. She knocked gently, and the
door was opened almost at once. A young man in an ill-fitting,
coal-blackened suit of blue dungaree looked inquiringly out at her and
then frowned.
"Keep to the other side of the passage, please," he requested crisply.
"This room's in strict quarantine, and the risk of infection--"
"Oh, never mind about that," she broke in. "It's no worse for me than
for you. And I must speak to Rube--Mr. Yoxall. Is he very bad? How did
you--"
She had recognised him by his voice. Without his horrible mask he looked
so much younger than she had supposed him that she had at first wondered
who he could be, although his keen, resolute face was haggard and lined,
his pale lips dreadfully drawn at the corners, and hideous remembrances
still seemed to lurk behind his steady grey eyes.
"He's asleep at present--and pretty bad," said the stranger sorrowfully.
"I had to give him an opiate. I volunteered to look after him--which
was the very least I could do. There was no one else who knew anything,
and, although I'm not a doctor, I know some of the tricks of the trade.
"And I know enough," he added, "to warn you that you must please stay
away from here in the meantime."
"I won't," said Sallie simply. "He's my best friend, Mr.--"
"Carthew's my name," the young man in the doorway informed her.
"He's my best friend, Mr. Carthew. And--you must let me help."
Mr. Carthew considered the matter, and nodded.
"All right," he agreed. "If you like to see to his food--what the ship's
cook has left at the door will do him no good." And she listened
attentively while he went on to tell her what would be best for the sick
man.
"Ambrizette will prepare it and bring it along," she promised.
"And--you'll let me see him next time I come down?"
"As soon as he's fit to see anyone," her new acquaintance assured her.
And with that Sallie was quite content. She felt intuitively that she
could trust him.
"Are you--all right, yourself?" she asked.
"Perfectly all right," he assured her. "And very glad of the chance to
repay some small part of what I owe--our friend."
"No one else will come near you here," she said reflectively. "It may
all be for the best in the end."
He nodded again, and, as she turned away, shut the door very quietly.
She hurried aft, to instruct Ambrizette as to the food to be prepared
and carried to the sick man's door, and no less hastily returned to the
bridge. Da Costa left it by the other ladder; he evidently did not care
to come too near her then. And there she remained all day, with only the
sullen, silent man at the wheel for company.
Once during the afternoon she slipped down to ask how the mate was, and
found him delirious. Slyne came on deck as she returned to her post, and
frowned angrily as she told him, in answer to his quick question, where
she had been. He had obviously intended to join her up there, but
thought better of that.
"You mustn't go near him again, Sallie," he called to her peremptorily.
"Captain Dove will be very ill-pleased."
"I can't help that," she answered, thankful so to escape Jasper Slyne's
company. And he turned away with a still blacker frown. It was tiresome
talking against the stiff head-wind.
The day dragged out its dreary length, until, late in the evening, Da
Costa came on deck again.
"I'm good for all night now," he told Sallie from a safe distance.
"Captain Dove's still sound asleep, although the mate's been making no
end of a row."
"I'll be up again some time in the morning watch, then," she told him,
and was soon knocking at the door of Yoxall's room.
Carthew's face was very grave when he looked out.
"Is he worse?" she asked breathlessly.
"Better--in one way," the young American answered. "He's conscious now.
He's had some of the soup you sent along."
"Can I see him?" she begged.
"He's just been speaking of you. He told me to ask you not to come near
him again."
She choked back a dry sob, and had pushed past him into the room before
he could interfere.
"I'll sit with him for an hour or two now, while you get a sleep," she
said, and stifled another sob as she saw how the sick man's sunken eyes
grew glad at sight of her.
Nor did anything that the acting doctor could urge make any difference
in her determination; and she hushed the mate's whispered protests with
a brave smile.
"We're going to pull you through, Rube, between us," she whispered back,
bending over him. "And you're going to obey orders for the present,
instead of giving them. So don't say any more about it now."
She had seated herself on a camp-stool beside him. Carthew, convinced
that it would be futile to argue any further with her, was evidently
only too glad to stretch himself on the sofa and draw the curtains. And
almost at once he fell fast asleep.
It was very nearly midnight before he moved and woke and sprang to his
feet. And Sallie was still sitting there with one of the mate's huge
hands between both of hers.
"He looks a little better, don't you think?" she asked wistfully before
she tiptoed out of the room. And Carthew, after a prolonged glance at
his patient, nodded approval and hope.
That night and the next day and the next again passed without any change
of conditions on board. Captain Dove was still confined to his room, and
would not even see Slyne, who had, therefore, to live alone, bored to
the last limit, not so much afraid of the fever as shirking any
needless risk of infection, his intercourse with Sallie confined to an
occasional shouted caution or inquiry.
Da Costa took the bridge by night and she by day. And every night she
relieved Carthew for a few hours from his unremitting attendance on the
sick man. She was with Reuben Yoxall when he died.
What passed between the two of them during that last vigil is not to be
told. But the dead man's face was very calm and content when Sallie at
length roused Carthew from his scanty rest to tell him that the
appointed end had come.
"But you promised to call me up," he said, most unhappy for her.
"If there was any need," she corrected him gently. "But there was none.
He knew--before I came in."
Her downcast eyes were dry, but grief almost beyond bearing showed in
them as she looked up at him on her way to the door.
"You must get away to your own room now," he urged, "and have a long,
quiet rest. Don't forget that you've done all you could--and far more
than most folk would ever have dreamed of doing."
Her lips trembled a little. She held out a hand to him gratefully. She
could not trust herself to speak. And, by and by, in her own quarters,
she slowly cried herself to sleep.
Captain Dove was on the bridge next morning when she appeared, pale and
worn. And he flew into a passion at sight of her, rating her very
bitterly for her foolhardy behaviour.
"Go away back to bed," he finally ordered, "and keep to the poop till I
give you leave to come forward again, d'ye hear?"
Slyne, too, stepped hastily aside as she passed him on her way aft
again, and called after her some anxious advice as to taking better care
of herself. She was glad to think that she would be free of him for the
next few days, for always in the back of her mind was the fear of what
he had told her before still more urgent cares had come to overshadow
that for a time--that he had got Captain Dove to agree to give her to
him as his wife. And, now that Reuben Yoxall was gone, she felt utterly
forlorn and friendless.
The _Olive Branch_ bored through the Strait of Gibraltar during the
night, and after that Captain Dove effected sundry surprising changes in
his ship's appearance. No one would have recognised the rakish _Olive
Branch_ in the clumsy looking craft with three bare pole-masts and a
smokestack as high as a factory chimney which went lurching, with
propellers awash, across the Gulf of Lyons. Even its name had been
changed again, and the new paint carefully aged. And a tattered
Norwegian flag lay ready at hand in the box beside the stubby pole at
its taffrail.
No further case of fever had occurred in the interval, but he left
Sallie isolated in her own end of the ship until the lights of Genoa
showed white and clear in the distance. She was on deck, late though it
was, watching them as they grew always clearer, when Slyne came aft for
a moment to tell her that she was once more free of the ship.
"And isn't it glorious to get back to civilisation again?" he exclaimed,
real gladness in his voice and his smiling eyes. "Think of the good
times we're going to have now, Sallie! I can't stop to tell you all I've
planned, but--I'll see you again very soon, eh? And meantime you can be
getting ready to slip ashore with me early to-morrow. I thought these
last few days would never end! I do believe I'd have jumped overboard
but for you and the promise you made me."
He went off again, in a great hurry, before she could even deny having
promised him anything. "Captain Dove wants me to fake up an old Bill of
Health for him," he called back, and did not seem to hear her when she
cried to him to wait.
Before she reached the quarter-deck, in her long oilskin coat, with a
broad sou'wester to keep the dew from her hair, he had disappeared. And
she did not care to follow him to the saloon below.
The steamer had stopped in the offing to pick up a pilot, and was
already slinking in between the harbour head-lights to the quarantine
anchorage. As soon as its rusty cable roared through the hawse-pipe,
Captain Dove came down from the bridge, and Sallie stepped out from
among the shadows to confront him, on a quick impulse.
"Is it true that you told Jasper Slyne I would marry him?" she asked
directly, without any preface.
The old man shrugged his shoulders crossly. "Don't worry me just now,
girl!" he growled, but paused for a moment before passing on.
"Has he been pestering you too?" he demanded, as if aggrieved himself,
"the bankrupt crook! Never mind him, Sallie. I'm going to kick him off
the ship first thing to-morrow morning. He hasn't a cent to bless
himself with, and--no man will ever marry you without money to burn,
believe me."
Sallie drew a deep breath of belated relief. That load at least had
been lifted from her mind. She was at last free of the fear which had
been growing day by day as the _Olive Branch_ neared port.
A head and shoulders emerged from the engine-room skylight and she went
that way. It was Brasse, the chief engineer, come up for a mouthful or
two of fresh air. He nodded to Sallie.
"Your friend's all right," he told her in a low tone. "The old man left
him alone in the mate's room till an hour ago and then told me to take
him back to the stokehold. He's going to swim for it now. I must get a
line let down--"
"I'll do that," she said swiftly, "there--between the two boats. Tell
him where to look for it. And oh! Mr. Brasse--"
He would not wait to be thanked. "I'll send him up right away, then. The
sooner he's over the side the better," said he, and so disappeared.
Sallie climbed the rail, and, having found a coil of rope within one of
the two life-boats there, was letting that gently overside when another
shadow joined her.
"How are you going to manage after you get ashore?" she asked hurriedly
as she was making the rope fast.
"I have my own kit in this water-tight bundle," he told her. "I'll make
for the steps below those bathing-houses on the breakwater. It's only a
short swim."
"But afterwards? You'll need money."
"I have a little--enough to get along with, I assure you. I've nothing
to worry about--if I could only think of some way to show you my
gratitude. Is there anything at all I can do for you?"
She shook her head.
"Are you sure?" he insisted. "I don't want to presume, of course,
but--Are you all right here, and quite happy? What sort of ship is this,
anyhow? And how--"
"Listen, Mr. Carthew," she broke in. "The only thing you can do for me
is to forget all about me and the _Olive Branch_. And I'd be very
grateful to you if you would promise--"
"Not to forget you," he said. "I couldn't. But--all the rest I promise."
"Thank you," she returned simply. "And now--"
"There's no hurry," he declared. "We're quite safe in here. And--I'm not
going to leave you until you agree that, if I can ever be of any service
to you, you will let me know at once."
"Very well," she agreed, to save time. "I'll do that."
"You know my name," he reminded her, and paused, frowning.
"But--that won't suit either," he said to himself reflectively, "for
more than a few weeks. And I'll be at your orders all my life.
"You see," he said, as if in apology, "I'm Justin Carthew just now,
but--I'll be the Earl of Jura very soon after I get to England. And if
you've ever any use for me then, all you need do will be to send word to
the Earl of Jura, in London; it will soon find me, wherever I happen to
be."
He laughed a little, and Sallie almost smiled too. But he had spoken
quite seriously.
"You won't forget," he urged, grave again. "The Earl of Jura. I'm not
joking, I assure you. And, some day I may be able--"
[Illustration: "You won't forget," he urged, grave again.]
"I won't forget," she promised, no less gravely, and held out a hand, in
her haste to get him safe away.
He lifted it to his lips before letting it go, and stifled a sigh, and,
turning, let himself over the ship's side.
Sallie sighed too, as she reclimbed the rail after he was safely gone.
She was wondering....
But she was not left to her own reflections for long. Slyne came on
deck, and had espied her before she could escape.
"I was just going aft to look for you," he told her in a confidential
tone which she did not like at all. "How about to-morrow morning,
Sallie?"
"I asked Captain Dove, Jasper," she answered in a low voice. "And he
says--"
"But surely you're going to keep your promise to me!" Slyne exclaimed,
in a tragic voice.
"How _can_ I?" she asked, not thinking it worth while even now to deny
that she had made him any promise at all. And at that moment Captain
Dove emerged from the chart-house behind.
"A bargain's a bargain, Slyne," said he mockingly, having overheard.
"And Sallie can't keep her promise to you because you can't come away
with the ready cash. So you'd better say good-bye to her now, you won't
have another chance."