She seemed about to say more, but Captain Swope interrupted.  When she appeared on deck, he affected not to see her; he had paced past her twice, but not by the quiver of an eyelash had he shown himself aware of her presence.  Now he suddenly paused nearby.  Perhaps his sailor’s sense of fitness was ruffled by the sight of her in conversation with the man at the wheel; or, more likely, his eye had noted the scene occurring forward, and he wished to force it upon her attention, because it would cause her pain.

“Ah, madam, commencing your good works so soon?” he remarked, in a soft, sneering voice.  “Well, from all signs for’ard, you had better overhaul your medicine chest.  You will have a patient or two to sniffle over to-morrow morning.”

The lady shuddered ever so slightly at Swope’s words, and her features contracted, as though with pain.  Just for an instant—­then she was serenity again, and she gazed forward, as Swope bade, and silently watched the mates at their work.

They were manhandling, of course.  I might have found humor in the scene had not the lady just stirred the softer chords of my being.  Away forward, by the foc’sle door, Mister Lynch was engaged in dressing down the Cockney.  This was not a particularly interesting exhibition, though, for although the Cockney showed fight, he was clearly outmatched, and arose from the deck only to be knocked down again.

But, by the main hatch was a more interesting spectacle.  There, Mister Fitzgibbon was busied with the spare, red-shirted man, he of the intelligent face and gashed skull, the man I had found so mysteriously occupying the bunk Newman had gone to bed in, and who, Lynch declared, was neither sailor, nor bum.  There on the poop, we could not overhear the small man’s words for Mister Fitz’s shrill cursing, but he seemed to be expostulating with the mate.  And he seemed intent on forcing past the mate and coming aft.  He would try to run past the hatch, and Fitzgibbon would punch him and send him reeling backwards.  Even as we watched, the mate seized him by the collar of his red shirt, slammed him up against the rail, and then, with a belaying pin, hazed him forward at a run.

I heard the lady sigh—­and Swope chuckled.  Then I noticed she was staring fixedly at the side of the cabin skylight.  A few drops of the blood the Old Man had drawn from the little squarehead were splattered upon the woodwork and the deck.  Silently, she regarded them, and her slight figure seemed to droop a bit.  Then, with a queer little shrug, she squared her shoulders, and faced the Captain with up-tilted chin. . . .  Aye, and I sensed the meaning of that little shrug, and the squared shoulders.  It meant that she had picked up her Cross, and that she would courageously bear it in pain and sorrow through the dark days of the coming voyage.  For I truly believe the lady suffered vicariously for every blow that bruised a sailor’s flesh on board the Golden Bough!