“Not I!”

Upon which the Captain, in high good-humour, declared, “I belief you!”

After that he fell to speaking German with Mr. Grey, and Blythe moved to the end of the bridge, and stood looking down 12 upon the steerage passengers, where they were disporting themselves in the sun on the lower deck.

12

They were a motley crew, and she never tired of watching them, as they sat about in picturesque groups, singing or playing games, or lay stretched on the deck, fast asleep.

Somewhat apart from the others was a woman with a little girl whom Blythe had not before observed. The child lay on a bright shawl, her head against the woman’s knee, her dark Italian eyes gazing straight up into the luminous blue of the sky. There was a curiously high-bred look in the pale features, young and unformed as they were, and Blythe wondered how such a child as that came to belong to the stout, middle-aged woman who did not herself seem altogether out of place in the rough steerage.

At this point in her meditations, a quiet, matter-of-fact voice struck her ear, and, turning, she found that Mr. Grey had come up behind her.

“The Captain says he will have the 13 ‘crow’s nest’ lowered and let you go up in it if you like,” was the startling announcement which roused her from her revery.

13

“Oh, you are making fun!” she protested.

“I don’t wonder you think so, but he seems quite in earnest, and I can tell you it’s the chance of a lifetime!”

“I should think it was!” she gasped. “Oh, tell him he’s an angel with wings! And please, please don’t let him change his mind while I run and ask Mamma!” With which Blythe vanished down the gangway, her golf-cape rising straight up around her head as the draught took it.

We may well believe that such a prospect as that drove from her mind all speculations as to the steerage passengers, and that even the thought of the little girl with the wonderful eyes did not again visit her in the few hours intervening.

Yet when, that afternoon at eight-bells, she passed with Mr. Grey down the steep gangway to the steerage deck, which they were obliged to traverse on their way to the forecastle, and they came upon the little 14 creature lying, with upturned face, against the woman’s knee, Blythe 

 Prev. P 6/111 next