Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/291

Rh they grew slacker when I began to suspect that after all Mr. Luke might not be on such good terms with his boyhood’s friend as he perhaps desired.

I got my first hint in this direction when, one afternoon, someone was heard bellowing in Mr. Batters’ cabin like a bull. I made for it. I found Mr. Luke upon the floor; his friend upon his chest; his friend’s hands about his throat. He was not bellowing just then. Mr. Batters had squeezed the grip right out of him. He was purple. In about another minute he would have known what death by strangulation meant. We got his dear friend off him. The dear friend said unkind things about Mr. Luke.

By the time we had brought the first mate round he was about as limp a man as you might wish to see. He made one remark, which was unprintable. He turned round in his bunk, where we had laid him, and for all I know he went to sleep.

Since, before that, I had taken care to see that he was berthed apart from Mr. Batters, there was nothing to disturb his slumber.

After that I did not feel it necessary to keep quite so sharp an eye on the attentions which he paid our passenger. They did not seem to be so friendly as they had been before.

As if I hadn’t enough to plague me, there was the girl. When I begin to write of her my language becomes mixed. As were my feelings at the time. And there were moments when she got me into such a state that I didn’t know if I was standing on my head or heels.

She was her father’s own child, though it seemed like sacrilege to connect the two. Insubordination wasn’t in it along with her. She twisted me round her finger. Except when I stiffened my back, and felt like stowing her in the long-boat, and cutting it adrift, with a bag of biscuit and a can of water.