“He lifted his anchor and called to me to come to the companion ladder,
and his voice told me that he was a gentleman. I could not meet him as
I was, with my hair loose, and bare-footed like some Norse Viking girl.
So I took the risk, for now, although I cannot tell why, I felt sure
that no harm would come to him or me, and ran to the cabin, where also
was this volume of my diary and my mother’s jewels that I did not wish
to lose. When at last I was ready after a fashion, I came out with my
bag, and there, splashing through the water of the saloon, ran the
stranger, shouting angrily to me to be quick, as the ship was lifting
off the rock, which made me think how brave it was of him to come
aboard to look for me. In an instant he caught me by the hand, and was
dragging me up the stairs and down the companion, so that in another
minute we were together in the boat, and he had told me that my father
was on shore—thank God!—though with a broken thigh.”
Then some pages of the diary were taken up with the description of the
twenty-four hours which she had spent on the open sea with himself, of
their landing, dazed and exhausted, at the Dead Church, and her strange
desire to explore it, their arrival at the Abbey, and her meeting with
her father. After these came a passage that may be quoted:—
“He is not handsome—I call him plain—with his projecting brow, large
mouth, and untidy brown hair. But notwithstanding his stoop and his
thin hands, he looks a fine man, and, when they light up, his eyes are
beautiful. It was brave of him, too, very brave, although he thinks
nothing of it, to come out alone to look for me like that. I wonder
what brought him? I wonder if anything told his mind that I, a girl
whom he had never seen, was really on the ship and in danger?
Perhaps—at any rate, he came, and the odd thing is that from the moment
I saw him, and especially from the moment I heard his voice, I felt as
though I had known him all my life. Probably he would think me mad if I
were to say so; indeed, I am by no means sure that he does not pay me
that compliment already, with some excuse, perhaps, in view of the
‘Song of the Overlord’ and all my wild talk. Well, after such a night
as I had spent anyone might be excused for talking foolishly. It is the
reaction from never expecting to talk again at all. The chief advantage
of a diary is that one may indulge in the luxury of telling the actual
truth. So I will say that I feel as though I had known him always;
always—and as though I understood him as one understands a person one
has watched for years. What is more, I think that he understands me
more than most people do; not that this is wonderful, seeing how few I
know. At any rate, he guesses more or less what I am thinking about,
and can see that there is something in the ideas which others consider
foolish, as perhaps they are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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