Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/79

Rh "She insulted me," said Mehalah, still agitated by passion, "and I flung her overboard." Mrs. De Witt rushed to the bulwarks, and saw the dripping damsel being carried—she could not walk—from the Strand to her father's house. "You chucked her overboard!" exclaimed the old woman, and she caught up a swabbing-mop. "How dare you? She was my visitor; she came to sip my grog and eat my natives at my hospitable board, and you chucked her into the sea as though she were a picked cockleshell!" "She insulted me," said Mehalah angrily. I will teach you to play the dog-fish among my herrings, to turn this blessed peaceful Pandora into a cage of bears!" cried Mrs. De Witt, charging with her mop. Mehalah struck the weapon down, and put her foot on it.

"Take care!" she exclaimed, her voice trembling with passion. "In another moment you will have raised the devil in me again."

"He don't take much raising," vociferated Mrs. De Witt. "I will teach you to assault a genteel young female who comes a-wisiting of me and my son in our own wessel. Do you think you are already mistress here? Does the Pandora belong to you? Am I to be chucked overboard along with every lass that wexes you ? Am I of no account any more in the eyes of my son, that I suckled from my maternal bottle, and fed with egg and pap out of my own spoon?" "For Heaven's sake," interrupted George, "sheer off, Mehalah. Mother is the dearest old lady in the world when she is sober. She is a Pacific Ocean when not vexed with storms. She will pacify presently."

"I will go, George," said Mehalah, panting with anger, her veins swollen, her eye sparkling, and her lip quivering; "I will go, and I will never set foot in this boat again, till you and your mother have asked my pardon for this conduct; she for this outrage, you for having allowed me to receive insult, white-livered coward that you are." She flung herself down the ladder, and waded ashore. Mrs. De Witt's temper abated as speedily as it rose. She retired to her grog. She set feet downwards on the