Charles Rex Part 6

Saltash's arm surrounded him with a comforting closeness. "You miserable little shrimp!" he said. "How's the head?"

"Better, sir. Thank you, sir," muttered Toby.

"Why not tell the truth for once and say it hurts like h.e.l.l?" suggested Saltash.

Toby was silent.

"Do you know what I'm going to do with you?" said Saltash.

"No, sir." Toby stirred uneasily.

The vessel pitched to a sudden slant and Saltash braced himself, protecting the fair head from a blow against the woodwork behind him.

"I'm going to put you to bed in my bunk here," he said. "You've got to have a decent night's rest. Did Murray look you out any spare slops? I told him to."

"Oh, yes, sir. Thank you, sir. But I couldn't sleep in your bunk, sir,--please, sir--indeed, sir!" Toby, still held by the sheltering arm, waxed incoherent, almost tearful.

Saltash pulled him up short. "You'll do as I tell you--now and always,"

he said, with royal finality. "You've put yourself in my hands, and you'll have to put up with the consequences. Got that?"

"Yes, sir," said Toby meekly.

"Then don't forget it!" said Saltash.

Toby subsided without further protest. Perhaps the brandy helped to make him quiescent, or perhaps it was only the realization of his utter weakness and dependence; but from that moment he was as submissive as if he had been indeed the small captive animal to which his new owner had likened him. At Saltash's behest and with his help, he presently crept back to his own cabin to divest himself of his hotel-livery and don the very roomy suit of pajamas that Murray the steward had served out to him.

Then, barefooted, stumbling, and shivering, he returned to where Saltash leaned smoking in the narrow dressing-room, awaiting him.

Saltash's dark face wore a certain look of grimness. He bent without words and lifted the shrinking figure in his arms.

Ten seconds later Toby sank down in a berth as luxurious as any ever carried by private yacht.

He was still shivering though a grateful warmth came about him as Saltash tucked him in. He tried to murmur thanks, but ended with a quivering chin and silence.

"Go to sleep, you little a.s.s!" commanded Saltash.

And so at last Toby slept, the deep, unstirring sleep of exhaustion, utterly unconscious of his surroundings, unaware of the man who came in and out watching that unchanging repose, sublimely oblivious of all observation, sunk in a slumber so remote that it might have been the last long rest of all.

Saltash spent the night on the velvet couch under the closed porthole, dozing occasionally and always awakening with a jerk as the roll of the vessel threatened to pitch him on to the floor of the cabin. It was not a comfortable means of resting but he endured it in commendable silence with now and then a grimace which said more than words.

And the little waif that the G.o.ds had flung to him slept in his bunk all through the long hours as peacefully as an effigy upon a tomb.

CHAPTER V

DISCIPLINE

The storm spent itself before they reached Gibraltar, and Toby emerged smiling from his captivity below. He still wore the brown and gold hotel-livery as there was nothing else on board to fit him, but from Gibraltar a small packet of notes was dispatched to Antonio by Saltash in settlement of the loan.

"Now I've bought you--body and soul," he said to Toby, whose shining look showed naught but satisfaction at the announcement.

The vivid colours of his injured eye had faded to a uniform dull yellow, and he no longer wore a bandage. When they put to sea again he was no longer an invalid. He followed Saltash wherever he went, attended scrupulously to his comfort, and when not needed was content to sit curled up like a dog close to him, dumb in his devotion but always ready to serve him.

Saltash treated him with a careless generosity that veiled a good deal of consideration. He never questioned him with regard to his past, taking him for granted in a fashion that set Toby completely at ease. No one else had much to do with him. Larpent ignored him, and Murray the steward regarded him with a deep suspicion that did not make for intimacy.

And Toby was happy. Day after day his cheery whistle arose over his work while he polished Saltash's boots and brushed his clothes, or swept and dusted the state-cabin in which he slept. He himself had returned to his own small den that led out of Saltash's dressing-room, but the intervening doors were kept open by Saltash's command. They were always within hail of each other.

They went into perfect summer weather, and for a blissful week they voyaged through blue seas with a cloudless sky overhead. Toby's white skin began to tan. The sharp lines went out of his face. His laugh was frequent and wholly care-free. He even developed a certain impudence in his att.i.tude towards his master to which Saltash extended the same tolerance that he might have shown for the frolics of a favourite dog. He accepted Toby's services, but he never treated him wholly as a servant.

It was an odd companionship which only the isolated life they led during those few days could have developed along those particular lines. When Saltash was bored he amused himself with his protege, teaching him picquet and chess, and finding in him an apt and eager pupil. There was a good deal of the gambler's spirit in Toby, and Saltash idly fostered it because it gave him sport. He laughed at his opponent's keenness, supplied stakes for the game, even good-naturedly let himself be beaten.

And then one day he detected Toby cheating. It was an end that he might have foreseen. He had encouraged the fever, he had practically sown the seeds; but, strangely, he was amazed, more disconcerted than he had been for years by the consequences. For it was not his way to disturb himself over anything. His principles were easy to laxness. But that Toby--the urchin he had sheltered and nursed like a sick puppy--should have done this thing somehow cut clean through his complacence.

"I'm going to give you a licking for that," he said, black brows drawn to a stern line. "You can go below and wait for it."

Toby went like an arrow, and Saltash spent the next half-hour pacing the deck, cursing himself, the youngster, and the insane and ridiculous Fate that had linked them together.

Then he went below to administer judicial corporal punishment to a human being for the first time in his life. As he himself whimsically expressed it, he had received ample correction during his own chequered career; but he had never been in a position to correct anyone else.

He found Toby waiting for him in his shirt-sleeves, rather white but quite composed, his riding-switch all ready to his hand.

"Ever been flogged before?" he asked him curtly as he picked it up.

"No, sir," said Toby, with downcast eyes.

"Why not?" There was a gibing note in Saltash's voice. "Never qualified before?"

Toby shot him a swift and nervous glance that was like a flash of blue flame. "No, sir. Never been caught before," he said.

Saltash's eyes flickered humour, but he steeled himself. "Well, you're caught this time--fairly caught. I may not be a specially fit person to punish you for it, but you won't be let off on that account."

"Go ahead, sir!" said Toby, with his hands twisted into a bony knot in front of him.

And Saltash went ahead. His heart was not in the business, and as he smote the narrow bent back it cried shame on him. Toby made no sound, but at the third stroke he winced, and Saltash with a terrific oath in French hurled his switch violently at the opposite wall.

"There! Don't do it again!" he said, and swung him round to face him.

"Sorry? What?"

Then he saw that Toby was crying, and abruptly let him go, striding out through the dining-saloon and up the companion-way, swearing strange oaths in varied languages as he went.

He was openly rude to Larpent when the latter sauntered up for a word with him a little later, but Larpent, knowing him, merely hunched his shoulders as his custom was and sauntered away again.

When Saltash went down to dress for dinner, he found his clothes laid out as usual, but no Toby in attendance. His first impulse was to look for him, but he checked it and dressed in solitude. This thing must be conducted in the approved judicial manner at all costs.

Larpent was stolidly awaiting him in the saloon, and they sat down together. Usually Toby stood behind his master's chair, and the vacant place oppressed Saltash. He talked jerkily, with uneasy intervals of silence.