In the Roaring Fifties | Page 9

prompted him with his toe.
'Meanin' me?' said the vanquished.
'To be sure. Be a man! Get up and face him.'
'Divil a fear o' me!' said Ryan. 'I'm never goin' to get up agin till you put that wild man to bed.' He pointed at Jim.
'Are you licked, then, Ryan?'
'Licked it is. Any man is li'ble to wander into error, maybe, but there's wan thing about Phil Ryan, he's open to conviction, an' he's had all the conviction he wants this blessed night.'
'Then we've had enough?' said the second, with an uneasy eye on Jim.
'We have that,' continued Ryan, 'onless some other gintleman would like to resoom th' argumint where I dthropped it.' The fallen hero ran his good eye eagerly from face to face.
But Done had already returned to his bunk, and the others seemed indisposed to put him to further trouble. No more jokes were played upon the Hermit. The cynics and the wits developed a pronouncedly serious vein, and it was resolved that for the future Jim Done should take his own road, and behave in his own peculiar way, without provoking objection from the company.
'Tis a curtyis an' gintlemanly risolution,' said Ryan, tenderly caressing his inflated eye, 'an' a great pity it is we forgot to think iv it sooner.'
The respect the forecastle had acquired for Done was vastly increased by his rescue of Lucy Woodrow. Conduct that had previously been ascribed to mere conceit was now accounted for by most romantic imaginings, for it is a cardinal belief amongst men of their class that the true fighter is superior to all little weaknesses and small motives. When the girl crossed the moonlit deck to Done's side, the sailors drifted away out of earshot, and inquisitive eyes could not turn in Jim's direction without provoking a profane reproof.
Done's heart beat heavily as the slim, dark figure faced him, extending a trembling hand.
'I am Lucy Woodrow,' she said in a voice little above a whisper.
'Yes,' he answered simply.
Her hand closed upon his fingers, and she was silent for a moment, evidently deeply agitated. Her head was bent, hiding her face from his eyes; and he noticed curiously the moonlight glimmering like tiny sparks in her red-brown hair.
'You saved my life,' she continued; 'you risked your own. I thank you with all my heart.'
There was something in her voice that made the simple, formal words quite eloquent, but Jim scarcely heeded them; he was terrified lest she should kiss his hand, and withdrew it abruptly.
'I can only say thank you--thank you! And one says that in gratitude for a mere politeness. But you understand, don't you? My heart is full.'
'Yes, I understand,' he said. 'Now, please, try to say no more about it. I'm glad to have helped you; but the risk I took was very small after all. I've almost lived in the sea.'
She raised her face and looked into his eyes.
'It is very easy for you to speak like that,' she said; 'but I know that if it were not for you at this moment my poor body--' She sobbed and turned to the sea, with something of its terror and desolation in her face, and Done understood the grim idea that possessed her.
'Thank God, it was not to be!' he said; and he felt more deeply at that moment than he had done for many years.
Lucy Woodrow remained silent, leaning upon the gunwale with her face to the sea, and he noticed presently that she was weeping, and was silent too. When she spoke again the new feeling in her voice startled him.
'Why did you save me?' she asked in a passionate whisper.
'Why?' He was full of wonder, and repeated the interrogation vaguely.
'Yes, why--why? You had no right!'
'Is it a matter of right?' he asked, stunned. 'I saw you fall. I don't know why I jumped over. My next conscious action was of striking out in the water. The act was quite involuntary.'
'You had no right!' Her voice was very low, but instinct with a grief that was tragic.
'Tell me what you mean.' Unconsciously, he spoke in the soothing tone one adopts towards an injured child.
'I did not fall overboard.'
'Then, what happened?'
'I threw myself into the sea!'
'You--you wished to drown?'
'Yes, I wanted to die--to be rid of my wretched, empty life.'
Done was thrilled. He gazed earnestly upon the frail young figure; he had a dawning sense of the possibilities of life and emotion in others. He, too, had often thought of self-slaughter in an abstract way as the final defiance; but here was a mere girl for whom life held so little that she craved for and dared death. A remembrance of his own sister came back to him, softening his heart to pity. He touched Lucy's arm gently.
'And when you were thanking me just now,' he