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_!

"Yes, I must look to my medicines," she replied to Swope. "I see they
will be required." There was no active hate in her voice, or in her
eyes, but she looked at the man much as one looks at some loathsome ye