ourteney'? An' that diztrac' you so bad this morning
that you 'ave not notiz' even that change' face on yo' brotheh?--or that
change' voice, eh? An' him he's too affraid to tell you how he's feeling
bad! As faz' as you can, take him--to his room--his bed--an' say you,
both, some prayers. He's godd the cholera."

XVIII

RAMSEY WINS A POINT OR TWO

There was half an hour yet before the first mate's watch would end.

He had risen from the captain's seat on the approach of that middle-aged
pair who in the first hour of the voyage had enjoyed seeing Hugh and
Ramsey together; a couple whose home evidently was far elsewhere--if
anywhere--and who as evidently had seen the world to better advantage
than most of the _Votaress's_ passengers. As he rose Hugh and Ramsey
came up near one of the wheels. Seeing them start directly for him, he
made a heavy show of attention to the married pair.

While the quick step of the two younger people brought them near, the
husband began to reply to the mate: "Why, to the common eye, tiresome, I
dare say. To the artist--I wonder! It's the only much-travelled river in
the world whose most imposing sight is always the boat."

"It isn't!" whispered Ramsey to Hugh. Then openly, yet decorously,
"Ahem!" she said as they lapsed into waiting attitudes. But the mate was
not to be ahemmed, and while he hearkened on to the critic she could do
no better than hammer the small of her back and smooth into it a further
perfection.

"At the same time," continued the stranger, "it's immensely interesting;
politically as to its future, scientifically as to its past." He turned
to his wife: "Look, for instance, at this bit of it right here." A
trained art in his pose and gesture caused Ramsey and old Joy to look as
he prompted. "This is Fausse Riviere Cut-off," he continued, and the
mate said it was--'False River'.

"Yes. Now, barely two generations ago"--he animatedly took Ramsey into
his glance--"this stream suddenly abandoned twenty-odd miles of its own
tremendous length and width and sprang through this two-mile cut-off."
There was such fervor in his tone, and in his wife's mien such vivacity
of interest, that the amazing event stood before Ramsey as if it had
just occurred.

"You've read books about this river!" she said.

"A few, drifting down it by flatboat."

"Oh, by Christopher!" broke out the mate, "I remember you now! Yo're
that play-actor! Yo're the man, by gad! who hauled me into