Of course Courtenay liked to be fondled in this manner. Elsie was at
her best as a ministering angel. But he protested against the need of
the doctor's precaution.
"No, no," he cried, "you already have one faithful patient in Joey. I
wonder he did not wake me earlier so that he might rush off to you. I
never have known him play the old soldier before. To see him curled up
there, gazing at you with those pathetic eyes, who would think that his
teeth met in Alaculof sinews last night? Twice, to my knowledge, he
saved my life. And the way he dodged blows aimed at him was something
marvelous. He used all four paws then, I assure you."
"Ah, yes," agreed Elsie, blushing again as she recalled the scene in
the saloon. "He could have told me the Indians were aboard long before
I knew it myself. Dr. Christobal deceived me so admirably that I am
not sure yet if I have forgiven him."
"He is a first-rate chap in an emergency," said Courtenay, "though I
have a bone to pick with him, too. He promised to call me at eight
o'clock, but I expect he and Boyle, or Tollemache, conspired to let me
sleep on. I was astounded when I saw the time. What do you think of a
skipper who lies abed all the morning, Miss Baring?"
"Gray has told him nothing," she decided at once. "That is very nice
of Gray. I must thank him." But she replied instantly, in her piquant
way: "Elsie certainly kept us in the dark about her fiançailles, Captain
Courtenay; but has not been silent as to your other achievements. If
you were not telling us that you have actually slept, I should have
cherished the belief that you had not closed an eyelid since the ship
struck."
Isobel meant to be on her best behavior. Her pact with the Frenchman
was discreditable but smooth words might restrain tongues from wagging
until she could leave the ship. Moreover, the vicissitudes of life in
these later days were not without their effect. She had known what it
was to suffer. She had seen men dying like cattle in the shambles.
The shadow of eternity had fallen so closely that twice during the
preceding night she was rudely awaked by the shrieking fear of a too
vivid dream. These things were not the butterfly flutterings of sunlit
Valparaiso. They were of a more ardent order, and her wings had not
yet recovered from the singeing.
Courtenay, willing to maintain a fiction which evidently gave her
relief, answered lightly that he yet had to earn these compliments, but
he hoped to be able soon to fix a date when everybody might bombard him
with the nicest phrases they could think of, and end the embarrassing
ordeal once for all.