Sail Ho! Part 98

"Can you eat this?" said the mate, offering his sandwich.

"Oh no. Miss Denning has been attending to me, bless her!"

"Amen, and a double blessing," said Mr Brymer. "There, keep a good heart, man, and pray for another day or two's calm. We'll do everything possible. Good-bye."

"I know you will, Brymer. Go on, then. You will all do your best."

He smiled at me then, and I followed the mate, who was hurrying along to the end of the saloon.

"Let's look at Walters first."

"No. You go; I can't, my lad. If I do I shall feel as if I must throw him overboard. He might have saved us from all this. Go and see him, and don't let him starve; though I suppose Mr Frewen's feeding him now on physic."

He hurried away, as I felt that in all probability Miss Denning had been there to see to the wretched lad; and so it proved, for on the locker close to his head was a gla.s.s of fresh water, and the white handkerchief bound round his head, still moist with eau-de-cologne, was evidently one of hers.

His eyes were closed as I entered, but after a minute he opened them and looked at me fixedly.

I could not help shuddering, and thinking how horribly bad he looked, but the repelling feeling gave way to pity directly, as I thought of how sharply he was being punished for all he had done--wounded, suffering severely in body, and far worse, I was sure, in mind.

I hesitated for a few moments, hardly knowing how to approach him, for mentally I felt farther from him than ever. We had never been friends, for I knew that he had never liked me, while now, as I gazed at him, and thought of all the sufferings he had caused, I felt that we ought to be enemies indeed. And so I behaved to him like the worst enemy I ever had, and as he gazed at me fixedly I went and laid my hand upon his forehead.

"You're precious hot and feverish," I said. "You had better have the door open too."

I propped the cabin-door wide, so that the air might pa.s.s through, and then added, gruffly enough--

"Shipbuilders are awful fools to make such little round windows," but, as I said it, I felt all the time that the little iron-framed circular window that could be screwed up, air and water-tight, had been the saving of many a ship in rough seas.

"Hadn't you better drink some water?" I said next, as I saw him pa.s.s his dry tongue over his parched lips.

"Please," he said feebly; and, as I took the gla.s.s of water, pa.s.sed my arm under his head to hold him up and let him drink, I said to myself--

"You cowardly, treacherous brute!--the bullet ought to have killed you, or we should have let you drown."

"Hah!" he sighed, as, after sipping a little of the water and swallowing it painfully, he began taking long deep draughts with avidity, just as if the first drops had moistened his throat and made a way for the rest.

"Have another gla.s.s?" I said abruptly.

He bowed his head, and I let him down gently; though, as I thought of Miss Denning, her brother, and the burning ship, I felt that I ought to let him down with as hard a b.u.mp as I could.

I filled the gla.s.s again, and once more lifted him and let him drink, scowling at him all the time.

"There," I thought, as I laid him back again, "that's enough. You'll soon die, and I don't want to have the credit of killing you with kindness."

He looked at me piteously, and his lips moved, but I could not grasp what he said.

"Wound hurt?" I asked.

He bowed his head.

"Sure to," I said. "It'll be ever so much worse yet."

He bowed his head again.

"Look here," I said gruffly, "why don't you speak, and not wag your head like a mandarin in a tea-shop?"

He looked at me reproachfully, and his lips moved again.

"Is the ship still burning?" he said faintly, and evidently with a great effort.

"Yes, I s'pose so," I replied. "It wasn't out when I came away. Arn't you glad?"

"Glad?" he said with a groan.

"Oh, well, it was all your doing. Feel proud, don't you?"

His eyes gazed fully in mine, and their lock said plainly, "I'm weak, helpless, and in misery. I'm full of repentance too, now. Don't, don't, pray, cast my sins in my face."

But somehow my tongue seemed to be out of my control. I wanted to take pity on him, and to do all I could to make his position more bearable, but all the time I kept on attacking him with the sharpest and most bitter reproaches.

"You ought to be proud," I said. "You can lie there and think that through your blackguards the ship has been blown up, and is now burning, and would burn to the water's edge if we couldn't stop it. The captain looks as if he were dying; you are nearly killed; you've nearly killed poor Mr Denning, who came this voyage for the benefit of his health; you have had Miss Denning insulted and exposed to no end of dangers; poor old Neb Dumlow has a shot in him; and we've been treated more like dogs than anything else; while now your beautiful friends have turned upon you, and left you to be burned in the ship they have set on fire, for aught they care. Yes; you ought to be proud of your work."

He groaned, and I felt as if I should like to bite my tongue off, as I wondered how I could have said such bitter things.

"I say, don't faint," I cried, and leaned over him, and sprinkled his face with water, for his eyelids had drooped, and a terribly ghastly look came over his face. But even as I tried to bring him to, I felt as if I were only doing so to make him hear my reproaches once more.

He opened his eyes after a few moments, and looked up at me.

"Here," I said roughly; "I'd better fetch the doctor to you."

"What for?" he cried. "He will only try and save my life, when it would be better for me to die out of the way. I want to die. How can I face people at home again? No, no, don't fetch him. It's all over. There is no hope for me now."

"Can I help you, Walters?" said Miss Denning, suddenly appearing at the door-way; and as I looked at her bright gentle face, with my wretched messmate's words still ringing in my ears, I could not help thinking that there must be hope even for such a cowardly traitor as he had proved, when she was here ready to help him and forgive all the past.

"Yes, Miss Denning, I think you can," I said very clumsily, I know.

"Walters knows what a brute he has been, and of course he is horribly sorry, and bad now, and keeps on speaking about there being no hope for him, and wanting to die. I can't talk to him, because I don't seem to be able to do anything but pitch into him--I mean with words--but you can."

"Poor fellow!" she said gently; and she laid her hand upon his hot brow; "he is very feverish, and in great pain."

"Yes, of course he is," I cried hurriedly; "but that's the way. I couldn't have said that. It would do any fellow good. And I say, Miss Denning, you tell him that I didn't mean all I said," I continued.

"He's done wrong, and he's sorry for it, and I'm sure I'll forgive him if you will."

She smiled at us both so gently that the stupid weak tears came in my eyes.

"That means you will," I cried hurriedly. "Then I say, you speak to him, and make him feel that talking about dying's no good. He can't show how sorry he is if he does, can he?"

"Of course not."

"Then tell him he's to get well as soon as he can, and play the man now and help us to save the ship, and you, and all of us; and I say, I really must go and help now, and--oh, Miss Denning, don't sit down there; that's my sandwich."