Outside the door of the Officers' Home the wretched Steward seemed to be waiting for me.
There was a broad flight of a few steps, and he ran to and fro on the top of it as if chained there.Adistressed cur.He looked as though his throat were too dry for him to bark.
I regret to say I stopped before going in.There had been a revolution in my moral nature.He waited open-mouthed, breathless, while I looked at him for half a minute.
"And you thought you could keep me out of it,"I said scathingly.
"You said you were going home," he squeaked miserably."You said so.You said so.""I wonder what Captain Ellis will have to say to that excuse," I uttered slowly with a sinister meaning.
His lower jaw had been trembling all the time and his voice was like the bleating of a sick goat."You have given me away? You have done for me?"Neither his distress nor yet the sheer absurdity of it was able to disarm me.It was the first in-stance of harm being attempted to be done to me --at any rate, the first I had ever found out.And I was still young enough, still too much on this side of the shadow line, not to be surprised and indig-nant at such things.
I gazed at him inflexibly.Let the beggar suffer.
He slapped his forehead and I passed in, pursued, into the dining room, by his screech: "I always said you'd be the death of me."This clamour not only overtook me, but went ahead as it were on to the verandah and brought out Captain Giles.
He stood before me in the doorway in all the commonplace solidity of his wisdom.The gold chain glittered on his breast.He clutched a smouldering pipe.
I extended my hand to him warmly and he seemed surprised, but did respond heartily enough in the end, with a faint smile of superior knowledge which cut my thanks short as if with a knife.Idon't think that more than one word came out.
And even for that one, judging by the temperature of my face, I had blushed as if for a bad action.
Assuming a detached tone, I wondered how on earth he had managed to spot the little underhand game that had been going on.
He murmured complacently that there were but few things done in the town that he could not see the inside of.And as to this house, he had been using it off and on for nearly ten years.Nothing that went on in it could escape his great experience.
It had been no trouble to him.No trouble at all.
Then in his quiet, thick tone he wanted to know if I had complained formally of the Steward's action.
I said that I hadn't--though, indeed, it was not for want of opportunity.Captain Ellis had gone for me bald-headed in a most ridiculous fashion for being out of the way when wanted.
"Funny old gentleman," interjected Captain Giles."What did you say to that?""I said simply that I came along the very mo-ment I heard of his message.Nothing more.Ididn't want to hurt the Steward.I would scorn to harm such an object.No.I made no com-plaint, but I believe he thinks I've done so.Let him think.He's got a fright he won't forget in a hurry, for Captain Ellis would kick him out into the middle of Asia....""Wait a moment," said Captain Giles, leaving me suddenly.I sat down feeling very tired, mostly in my head.Before I could start a train of thought he stood again before me, murmuring the excuse that he had to go and put the fellow's mind at ease.
I looked up with surprise.But in reality I was indifferent.He explained that he had found the Steward lying face downward on the horsehair sofa.
He was all right now.
"He would not have died of fright," I said con-temptuously.
"No.But he might have taken an overdose out of one of them little bottles he keeps in his room,"Captain Giles argued seriously."The confounded fool has tried to poison himself once--a few years ago.""Really," I said without emotion."He doesn't seem very fit to live, anyhow.""As to that, it may be said of a good many.""Don't exaggerate like this!" I protested, laughing irritably."But I wonder what this part of the world would do if you were to leave off look-ing after it, Captain Giles? Here you have got me a command and saved the Steward's life in one afternoon.Though why you should have taken all that interest in either of us is more than I can understand."Captain Giles remained silent for a minute.
Then gravely:
"He's not a bad steward really.He can find a good cook, at any rate.And, what's more, he can keep him when found.I remember the cooks we had here before his time!..."I must have made a movement of impatience, because he interrupted himself with an apology for keeping me yarning there, while no doubt I needed all my time to get ready.
What I really needed was to be alone for a bit.
I seized this opening hastily.My bedroom was a quiet refuge in an apparently uninhabited wing of the building.Having absolutely nothing to do (for I had not unpacked my things), I sat down on the bed and abandoned myself to the influences of the hour.To the unexpected influences....
And first I wondered at my state of mind.Why was I not more surprised? Why? Here I was, in-vested with a command in the twinkling of an eye, not in the common course of human affairs, but more as if by enchantment.I ought to have been lost in astonishment.But I wasn't.I was very much like people in fairy tales.Nothing ever astonishes them.When a fully appointed gala coach is produced out of a pumpkin to take her to a ball, Cinderella does not exclaim.She gets in quietly and drives away to her high for-tune.
Captain Ellis (a fierce sort of fairy) had pro-duced a command out of a drawer almost as un-expectedly as in a fairy tale.But a command is an abstract idea, and it seemed a sort of "lesser marvel" till it flashed upon me that it involved the concrete existence of a ship.
