第6章

"Can't you take her back to the steamer and put her to bed?"

"I could ask the captain, certainly, miss, though of course it's something we never do, and besides we have to set the ship to rights and go across again this evening."

"Ask her what hotel she is going to, Salemina," we suggested, "and let us drop her there, and put her in charge of the housekeeper; of course if it is only sea-sickness she will be all right in the morning."

The girl's eyes were closed, but she opened them languidly as Salemina chafed her cold hands, and asked gently if we could not drive her to an hotel.

"Is--this--your--baggage?" she whispered.

"It is," Salemina answered, somewhat puzzled.

"Then don't--leave me here, I am from Salem--myself," whereupon without any more warning she promptly fainted away on the trunk.

The situation was becoming embarrassing. The assemblage grew larger, and a more interesting and sympathetic audience I never saw.

To an Irish crowd, always warm-hearted and kindly, willing to take any trouble for friend or stranger, and with a positive terror of loneliness, or separation from kith and kin, the helpless creature appealed in every way. One and another joined the group with a "Holy Biddy! what's this at all?"

"The saints presarve us, is it dyin' she is?"

"Look at the iligant duds she do be wearin'."

"Call the docthor, is it? God give you sinse! Sure the docthors is only a flock of omadhauns."

"Is it your daughter she is, ma'am?" (This to Salemina.)

"She's from Ameriky, the poor mischancy crathur."

"Give her a toothful of whisky, your ladyship. Sure it's nayther bite nor sup she's had the morn, and belike she's as impty as a quarry-hole."

When this last expression from the mother of the long weak family fell upon Salemina's cultured ears she looked desperate.

We could not leave a fellow-countrywoman, least of all could Salemina forsake a fellow-citizen, in such a hapless plight.

"Take one cab with Francesca and the luggage, Penelope," she whispered. "I will bring the girl with me, put her to bed, find her friends, and see that she starts on her journey safely; it's very awkward, but there's nothing else to be done."

So we departed in a chorus of popular approval.

"Sure it's you that have the good hearts!"

"May the heavens be your bed!"

"May the journey thrive wid her, the crathur!"

Francesca and I arrived first at the hotel where our rooms were already engaged, and there proved to be a comfortable little dressing, or maid's, room just off Salemina's.

Here the Derelict was presently ensconced, and there she lay, in a sort of profound exhaustion, all day, without once absolutely regaining her consciousness. Instead of visiting the National Gallery as I had intended, I returned to the dock to see if I could find the girl's luggage, or get any further information from the stewardess before she left Dublin.

"I'll send the doctor at once, but we must learn all possible particulars now," I said maliciously to poor Salemina. "It would be so awkward, you know, if you should be arrested for abduction."

The doctor thought it was probably nothing more than the complete prostration that might follow eight days of sea-sickness, but the patient's heart was certainly a little weak, and she needed the utmost quiet. His fee was a guinea for the first visit, and he would drop in again in the course of the afternoon to relieve our anxiety. We took turns in watching by her bedside, but the two unemployed ones lingered forlornly near, and had no heart for sightseeing. Francesca did, however, purchase opera tickets for the evening, and secretly engaged the housemaid to act as head nurse in our absence.