"I wish I'd been here to see it," murmured the girl almost fervently, while a light leapt to her grey eyes which made Smith think of firelight seen through a closed window in winter time.
"Blimey! I don't admire your taste, Miss," he ejaculated. "The decks were like a blood--yes, they were--like a bloody slaughter-house. There's no other way of puttin' it."
"At any rate, he's a man," retorted Miss Fletcher with a queer note of defiance in her voice, "and I admire him for it."
Smith gazed at her for a moment in utter perplexity. He had confidently expected that, after the way in which the Captain had treated her, the girl would be only too ready to accept anything that could be said to his disadvantage. Yet she was actually expressing admiration for him and his bloodthirsty methods! Her attitude not only amazed him, but struck him as being shockingly unfeminine. As a woman she ought to have expressed the strongest disgust at the skipper's brutality, and not gloried in it.
"Lummy! You're a queer'n and no error," he murmured.
He rose to his feet, and, going to the taffrail, expectorated over the side with unnecessary violence. Like most men whose lives have been spent in rough places and whose knowledge of women is limited, he cherished a pathetic belief in their legendary gentleness and timidity. It was true that this particular young woman had not displayed these qualities in any marked degree, but he had never doubted their existence even so. He felt now that, in being a woman, she was living under false pretences, so to speak. It was a very real grievance in his eyes, more especially when he reflected on the noble restraint he had exercised over his speech and manners out of regard for her sex.
He returned moodily to the hatch and sat down. The girl was still discussing Calamity with McPhulach, her voice defiantly enthusiastic.
"If I were a man I'd ask for no better Captain to sail under," she was saying.
"It's a pity you ain't, then," growled Smith, who had returned just in time to overhear this remark.
"I've often thought so myself," she retorted. "Men are getting too soft nowadays."
"Meybe so," put in the engineer soothingly. "But ye'll hae no cause to complain o' the saftness aboord this packet, I'm thinkin'. And gin it's devilry ye're so muckle fond of, ye've no need to fash yersel' aboot missin' any here."