I found myself strangely afraid of this woman I was escorting aft.Also I was awkward.It seemed to me that I was realizing for the first time what a delicate, fragile creature a woman is; and as I caught her arm to help her down the companion stairs, I was startled by its smallness and softness.Indeed, she was a slender, delicate woman as women go, but to me she was so ethereally slender and delicate that was quite prepared for her arm to crumble in my grasp.All this, in frankness, to show my first impression, after long denial, of women in general and of Maud Brewster in particular.
"No need to go to any great trouble for me," she protested, when I had seated her in Wolf Larsen's arm-chair, which I had dragged hastily from his cabin."The men were looking for land at any moment this morning, and the vessel should be in by night; don't you think so?"Her simple faith in the immediate future took me aback.How could Iexplain to her the situation, the strange man who stalked the sea like Destiny, all that it had taken me months to learn? But I answered honestly:
"If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would be ashore in Yokohama to-morrow.But our captain is a strange man, and I beg of you to be prepared for anything, understand? -- for anything.""I -- I confess I hardly do understand," she hesitated, a perturbed but not frightened expression in her eyes."Or is it a misconception of mine that shipwrecked people are always shown every consideration? This is such a little thing, you know.We are so close to land.""Candidly, I do not know," I strove to reassure her."I wished merely to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come.This man, this captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what will be his next fantastic act."I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an "Oh, see," and her voice sounded weary.To think was patently an effort.She was clearly on the verge of physical collapse.
She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remarks, devoting myself to Wolf Larsen's command, which was to make her comfortable.I bustled about in quite housewifely fashion, procuring soothing lotions for her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen's private stores for a bottle of port I knew to be there, and directing Thomas Mugridge in the preparation of the spare state-room.
The wind was freshening rapidly, the Ghost heeling over more and more, and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing through the water at a lively clip.I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach and Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, "Boat ho!" came down the open companionway.It was Smoke's unmistakable voice, crying from the masthead.
I shot a glance at the woman, but she was leaning back in the arm-chair, her eyes closed, unutterably tired.I doubted that she had heard, and Iresolved to prevent her seeing the brutality knew would follow the capture of the deserters.She was tired.Very good.She should sleep.
There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a slapping of reef-points as the Ghost shot into the wind and about on the other tack.As she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair began to slide across the cabin floor, and I sprang for it just in time to prevent the rescued woman from being spilled out.
Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepy surprise that perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she half stumbled, half tottered, as I led her to her cabin.Mugridge grinned insinuatingly in my face as I shoved him out and ordered him back to his galley work; and he won his revenge by spreading glowing reports among the hunters as to what an excellent "lydy's myde" I was proving myself to be.
She leaned heavily against me, and I do believe that she had fallen asleep again between the arm-chair and the state-room.This discovered when she nearly fell into the bunk during a sudden lurch of the schooner.
She aroused, smiled drowsily, and was off to sleep again; and asleep Ileft her, under a heavy pair of sailor's blankets, her head resting on a pillow I had appropriated from Wolf Larsen's bunk.
