After a moment's hesitation Bradish went below. He returned in a little
while.
In spite of his efforts to pretend obliviousness Mayo stared hard at
the companionway, eager to look on the face of the girl. But she did not
follow her lover.
"She doesn't feel well enough to come on deck," reported Bradish. "But
she is in the saloon. Captain Downs, won't you go and talk to her and
say something to make her feel easy in her mind? She is very nervous.
She is frightened."
"I'm not much of a ladies' man," stated Old Mull. But he pulled off his
cap and smoothed his grizzled hair.
"And if you could only say that you're going to help us!" pleaded the
lover. "We throw ourselves on your mercy, sir."
"I ain't much good as a life-raft in this love business." He started for
the companionway.
"But don't tell her that you will not marry us--not just now. Wait till
she is calmer."
"Oh, I sha'n't tell her! Don't worry!" said Captain Downs, with a grim
set to his mouth. "All she, or you, gets out of me can be put in a
flea's eye."
He disappeared down the steps, and Bradish followed. A mate had come
aft, obeying the master's hand-flourish, and he took up the watch. In a
little while Mayo was relieved. He went forward, conscious that he was
a bit irritated and disappointed because he had not seen the heroine of
this love adventure, and wondering just a bit at his interest in that
young lady.
An hour later Mayo, coiling down lines in the alley outside the
engine-room, overheard a bulletin delivered by the one-eyed cook to the
engineer.
The cook had trotted forward, his sound eye bulging out and thus mutely
expressing much astonishment. "There's a dame aft. I've been making tea
and toast for her."
"Well, you act as if it was the first woman you'd ever seen. What's the
special excitement about a skirt going along as passenger?"
"She wa'n't expected to be aboard. I heard the old man talking with her.
The flash gent that's passenger has rung her in somehow. I didn't get
all the drift be-cause the old man only sort of purred while I was in
hearing distance. But I caught enough to know that it ain't according to
schedule."
"Good looker?" The engineer was showing a bit of interest.
"She sure is!" declared the cook, demonstrating that one eye is as
handy, sometimes, as two. "Peaches and cream, molasses-candy hair, hands
as white as pastry flour. Looks good enough to eat."