The After House

"He rang for help!" she cried, and broke down utterly. She dropped

into a chair in the chart-room and cried softly, helplessly, while

I stood by, unable to think of anything to do or say. I think now

that it was the best thing she could have done, though at the time

I was alarmed. I ventured, finally, to put my hand on her shoulder.

"Please!" I said.

Charlie Jones came to the door of the chartroom, and retreated with

instinctive good taste. She stopped crying after a time, and I

knew the exact instant when she realized my touch. I felt her

stiffen; without looking up, she drew away from my hand; and I

stepped back, hurt and angry--the hurt for her, the anger that I

could not remember that I was her hired servant.

When she got up, she did not look at me, nor I at her--at least not

consciously. But when, in those days, was I not looking at her,

seeing her, even when my eyes were averted, feeling her presence

before any ordinary sense told me she was near? The sound of her

voice in the early mornings, when I was washing down the deck, had

been enough to set my blood pounding in my ears. The last thing I

saw at night, when I took myself to the storeroom to sleep, was her

door across the main cabin; and in the morning, stumbling out with

my pillow and blanket, I gave it a foolish little sign of greeting.

What she would not see the men had seen, and, in their need, they

had made me their leader. To her I was Leslie, the common sailor.

I registered a vow, that morning, that I would be the common sailor

until the end of the voyage.

"Mr. Turner is awake, I believe," I said stiffly.

"Very well."

She turned back into the main cabin; but she paused at the storeroom

door.

"It is curious that you heard nothing," she said slowly. "You slept

with this door open, didn't you?"

"I was locked in."

She stooped quickly and looked at the lock.

"You broke it open?"

"Partly, at the last. I heard--" I stopped. I did not want to

tell her what I had heard. But she knew.

"You heard--Karen, when she screamed?"

"Yes. I was aroused before that,--I do not know how,--and found

I was locked in. I thought it might be a joke--forecastle hands

are fond of joking, and they resented my being brought here to sleep.

I took out some of the screws with my knife, and--then I broke the

door."

"You saw no one?"

"It was dark; I saw and heard no one."

"But, surely--the man at the wheel--"

"Hush," I warned her; "he is there. He heard something, but the

helmsman cannot leave the wheel."