of faultless composure the girl spoke out:

"Is that the captain yonder?"

"No," he said, equally composed, though busy thinking that but for his
eye she would at this moment be lying, in all these dainty draperies, as
deep beneath the boiling flood as she now stood above it. "That's not
the captain."

"Then why is he running the boat?"

"He owns her."

"Oh!" The girl's soft laugh was at herself. Presently--"Where's her
captain?"

"Ashore, in the hospital."

"What's he got?"

"Missy!" murmured the dark woman beseechingly.

But missy gave her no heed. "Got cholera?" she ventured, "the Asiatic
cholera?"

"No, a broken leg."

"Oh! Is that all he's got?"

"No, he has another, not broken." The speaker was so solemn that, with
mirth in every drop of her blood, the inquirer contrived to be grave,
herself.

"How'd he get it--I mean get it broken?"

"He was superintending----"

"And fell? When'd he fall?"

"This afternoon, about----"

"Where'd it happen?"

"Down on the lower deck as he----"

"Which is the lower deck?"

"The deck you came aboard on."

"They told me that was the freight deck!"

"It is."

"Then, why--?" She ceased, pondered, and spoke again: "Is there any deck
lower than the lower deck?"

"None."

She mused once more: "Why--that's strange."

"Yes," he said, "strange, but true."

"Then how could the captain fall----" Again she ceased and yet again
pondered: "Are the boilers--on the boiler deck?"

"No, the boiler deck is just over the boilers."

"Then why do they--" Once more she pondered.

"The boilers," said the youth, "are down on the freight deck."

The questioner brightened. "Do they ever put any freight on the boiler
deck?" she asked.

Before he could say yes, and without the slightest warning, a laugh
burst from her tightened lips. He could not have called it unmusical and
did not resent it, although he did regard it as without the slenderest
excuse. Her eyes and brow, still confronting his in a distress of mirth,
confessed the whim's forlorn senselessness, while his face returned not
the smallest sign of an emotion. As the moment lengthened, the
transport, so far from passing, spread through all her lithe form.
Suddenly she turned aside, drew herself up, faced him again, and began
to inquire, "Do they ever--" but broke down once more, fell upon the old
woman's shoulder with a silvery tinkle, shook, hung limp, threw one foot
behind her, and tapped the deck with h