Charles Rex | Page 6

and ease.
Saltash never took a valet when he went for a voyage. The steward attended to his clothes, and he waited on himself. He liked as much space as he could get both on deck and below.
He pushed open the door of his cabin and felt for the switch of the electric light. But he did not press it when he found it. Something made him change his mind. The faint light of stars upon rippling water came to him through the open porthole, and he shut himself in and stepped forward to the couch beneath it to look forth.
But as he moved, another influence caught him, and he stopped short.
"Is anyone here?" he said.
Through the wash of the water he thought he heard a light movement, and he felt a presence as of some small animal in the space before him.
Swiftly he stepped back and in a moment his hand was on the switch. The light flashed on, and in a moment he stood staring--at a fair-haired, white-faced lad in a brown livery with brass buttons who stood staring back at him with wide, scared eyes.

CHAPTER III
THE GIFT
Saltash was the first to recover himself; he was seldom disconcerted, never for long.
"Hullo!" he said, with a quizzical twist of the eyebrows. "You, is it? And what have you come for?"
The intruder lowered his gaze abruptly, flushing to the roots of his fair hair. "I came," he said, in a very low voice, "to--to ask you something."
"Then you've come some distance to do it," said Saltash lightly, "for I never turn back. Perhaps that was your idea, was it?"
"No--no!" With a vehement shake of the head he made answer. "I didn't think you would start so soon. I thought--I would be able to ask you first."
"Oh, indeed!" said Saltash. And then unexpectedly he laid a hand upon one narrow shoulder and turned the downcast face upwards. "Ah! I thought he'd marked you, the swine! What was he drubbing you for? Tell me that!"
A great purple bruise just above one eye testified to the severity of the drubbing; the small, boyish countenance quivered sensitively under his look. With sudden impulse two trembling hands closed tightly upon his arm.
"Well?" said Saltash.
"Oh, please, sir--please, my lord, I mean--" with great earnestness the words came--"let me stay with you! I'll earn my keep somehow, and I shan't take up much room!"
"Oh, that's the idea, is it?" said Saltash.
"Yes--yes!" The boy's eyes implored him,--blue eyes with short black lashes that imparted an oddly childish look to a face that was otherwise thin and sharp with anxiety. "I can do anything. I don't want to live on charity. I can work. I'd love to work--for you."
"You're a rum little devil, aren't you?" said Saltash.
"I'm honest, sir! Really I'm honest!" Desperately the bony hands clung. "You won't be sorry if you take me. I swear you'll never be sorry!"
"What about you?" said Saltash. He was looking down into the upraised face with a semi-quizzical compassion in his own. "Think you'd never be sorry either?"
A sudden smile gleamed across the drawn face. "Of course I shouldn't! You're English."
"Ah!" said Saltash, with a faintly wry expression. "Not necessarily white on that account, my friend, so don't run away with that idea, I beg! I'm quite capable of giving you a worse drubbing than the good Antonio, for instance, if you qualified for it. I can be a terrifically wild beast upon occasion. Look here, you imp! Are you starved or what? Do you want something to eat?"
The wiry fingers tightened on his arm. "No, sir--no, my lord--not really. I often don't eat. I'm used to it."
"But why the devil not?" demanded Saltash. "Didn't they feed you over there?"
"Yes--oh, yes. But I didn't want it. I was--too miserable." The blue eyes blinked rapidly under his look as if half-afraid of him.
"You little ass!" said Saltash in a voice that somehow reassured. "Sit down there! Curl up if you like, and don't move till I come back!"
He indicated the sofa, and quite gently but with decision freed his arm from the nervously gripping hands.
"You won't send me back?" the boy urged with quivering supplication.
"No, I won't do that," said Saltash as he went away.
He swore once or twice with considerable energy ere he returned, cursing the absent Antonio in language that would have outmatched the Italian's own. Then, having relieved his feelings, he abruptly laughed to himself and pursued his errand with business-like briskness.
Returning, he found his _prot��g��_ in a small heap on the sofa, with his head deep in the cushion as though he sought escape from the light. Again the feeling of harbouring some small animal in pain came to him, and he frowned. The mute misery of that huddled form held a more poignant appeal than any words.
"Look here,--Toby!"