Gideons Band | Page 5

soon he moved away
again in mild preoccupation. The maiden's frank scrutiny followed him
a step or two and then turned squarely to the youth. Her attendant
stirred uncomfortably and breathed some inarticulate protest, but in a
tone 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 her toe. A married couple
drifting by, obviously players and of the best of their sort, enjoyed the
picture.
"Why, missy!" the nurse softly pleaded, "yo' plumb disgracin' yo'seff!
Stop! Stop!"
"I can't!" whined the girl, between her paroxysms, "till he stops looking

like that." But as the youth was merely looking like himself he saw no
reason why he should stop.
To avoid the current the steamer suddenly began to run so close beside
the moored ships that the continuous echo of all her sounds--the flutter
of her great wheels, the seething of waters, the varied activities of her
lower deck--came back and up to the three voyagers with a nearness
and minuteness that startled the girl and drew her glance; but just as her
dancing eyes returned reproachfully to the youth the big bell at her
back pealed its signal for landing and she sprang almost off her feet,
cast herself into the nurse's bosom, and laughed more inexcusably than
ever.
The woman put an arm about her shoulder and drew her a few steps
back along the rail to where four or five others were gathered. The
young man gave all his attention downward across the starboard bow.
The engine bells jingled far below, the wheels stopped, the giant
chimneys ceased their majestic breathing, and the boat came slowly
abreast of a ship standing high out of the water.

V
RAMSEY HAYLE
The flag of Holland floated aft of a deck crowded with a sun-tanned
and oddly clad multitude. The Dutch sailors lowered their fenders
between the ship's side and the boat's guards, lines were made fast, a
light stage was run down from the ship's upper deck to the boat's
forecastle, and in single file, laden with their household goods, the
silent aliens were hurried aboard the Votaress and to their steerage
quarters, out of sight between and behind her engines.
Up on the boiler and hurricane decks her earlier passengers found,
according to their various moods and capacities, much entertainment in
the scene. The girl with the nurse laughed often, of course. Yet her
laugh bore a certain note of sympathy and