第67章

Beresford--like medieval knights and modern children at their devotions--and addressed her thus:--"Daughter of light, he who basks in your beams said to himself, 'The pirates are upon us, those children of blood, whom Sheitan their master blast for ever! They will ravish the Queen of Sunshine and the ayahs, and throw the sahibs and sailors into the sea; but, bread being the staff of existence, these foxes of the water will not harm it, but keep it for their lawless appetites; therefore Ramgolam, son of Chittroo, son of Soonarayan, will put the finger of silence on the lip of discretion, and be bread in the day of adversity: the sons of Sheitan will peradventure return to dry land and close the eye of watchfulness; then will I emerge like the sun from a cloud, and depart in peace.""Oh, very well," said Mrs. Beresford; "then you are an abominable egotist, that is all, and a coward: and thank Heaven Freddy and I were defended by English and Americans, and--hem!--their friends, and not by Hindoos." She added charmingly, "This shows me my first words on coming here ought to have been to offer my warmest thanks to the brave men who have defended me and my child;" and swept them so queenly a curtesy, that the men's hats and caps flew off in an instant "Mr. Black," said she, turning with a voice of honey to Vespasian, but aiming obliquely at Fullalove's heart, _"would_ you oblige me by kicking that dog a _little:_he is always smelling what does not belong to him--why, it is blood; oh!"and she turned pale in a moment.

Sharpe thought some excuse necessary. "You see, ma'am, we haven't had time to clean the decks since.""It is the blood of men--of the poor fellows who have defended us so nobly," faltered the lady, trembling visibly.

"Well, ma'am," said Sharpe, still half apologetically, "you know a ship can't fight all day long without an accident or two." He added, with nautical simplicity and love of cleanliness, "However, the deck will be cleaned and holy-stoned to-morrow, long before you turn out."Mrs. Beresford was too much overcome to explain how much deeper her emotion was than a dislike to stained floors. She turned faint, and on getting the better of that, went down to her cabin crying. Thence issued a royal order that the wounded were to have wine and every luxury they could fancy, without limit or stint--at her expense.

The next day a deep gloom reigned in the ship; the crew were ranged in their Sunday clothes and bare-headed; a grating was rigged; Sharpe read the burial service; and the dead, each man sewed up in his hammock with a 32-lb. shot, glided off the grating into the sea with a sullen plunge;while their shipmates cried so that the tears dripped on the deck.

With these regrets for the slain, too violent to last, was mingled a gloomy fear that Death had a heavier blow in store. The surgeon's report of Captain Dodd was most alarming; he had become delirious about midnight, and so continued.

Sharpe commanded the ship; and the rough sailors stepped like cats over that part of the deck beneath which their unconscious captain lay. If two men met on the quarter-deck, a look of anxious, but not hopeful, inquiry was sure to pass between them.

Among the constant inquirers was Ramgolam. The grave Hindoo often waylaid the surgeon at the captain's door, to get the first intelligence This marked sympathy with a hero in extremity was hardly expected from a sage who at the first note of war's trumpet had vanished in a meal-bag.