Caleb looked at her curiously. Her tone of voice was new to him. She had never loosened his arm before, not when she was tired and sick. She had always crept into his lap, and put her pretty white arms around his neck, and tucked her head down on his big beard.
"What's the matter, little one?" he asked anxiously. "Maybe it's hungry ye be?"
"Yes, I guess I'm hungry, Caleb," said Betty wearily.
"I'll go out, Betty, an' git ye some soup or somethin'. I'll be back right away, little woman." He tiptoed past the cot, putting on his cap as he went.
Two of the men followed him with their eyes and smiled. One looked significantly at Lacey and then toward the retreating figure, and shook his head in a knowing way.
Betty had not answered Caleb. She did not even turn her head to follow his movements. She saw only the bruised, pale face before her as she listened to the heavy breathing of the sufferer. She would have dropped from her chair with fatigue and exhaustion but for some new spirit within her which seemed to hold her up, and to keep the fan still in her hand.
When Sanford, after escorting Mrs. Leroy to her home, returned to the improvised hospital, he found the lanterns lighted, and learned that the doctor had dressed the men's wounds, and had reported everybody on the mend, especially Lacey; at Betty's urgent request he had made a careful examination of the young rigger's wounds, and had pronounced him positively out of danger. Only then had she left her post and gone to her own cottage with Caleb.
Captain Joe had followed Aunty Bell home for a few hours' rest, and all the watchers had been changed.
There was but one exception. Beside the cot upon which lay the sailor with the dislocated hip sat the major, with hat and coat off, his shirt-cuffs rolled up. He was feeding the sufferer from a bowl of soup which he held in his hand. He seemed to enjoy every phase of his new experience. It might have been that his sympathies were more than usually aroused, or it might have been that the spirit of vagabondage within him, which fitted him for every condition in life, making him equally at home among rich and poor, and equally agreeable to both, had speedily brought him into harmony with the men about him. Certainly no newly appointed young surgeon in a charity hospital could have been more entirely absorbed in the proper running of the establishment than was Slocomb in the care of these rough men. He had refused point-blank Mrs. Leroy's pressing invitation to spend the night at her house, his refusal causing much astonishment to those who misunderstood his reasons.