He took his hands out of his pocket, dragged the cap down on his head and
stuck them back into his pockets, exactly as if preparing himself to go
out into a great wind. "But not so low as to put up with this disgrace,
to see her, fast in this fellow's clutches, without doing something. She
wouldn't listen to me. Frightened? Silly? I had to think of some way
to get her out of this. Did you think she cared for him? No! Would
anybody have thought so? No! She pretended it was for my sake. She
couldn't understand that if I hadn't been an old man I would have flown
at his throat months ago. As it was I was tempted every time he looked
at her. My girl. Ough! Any man but this. And all the time the wicked
little fool was lying to me. It was their plot, their conspiracy! These
conspiracies are the devil. She has been leading me on, till she has
fairly put my head under the heel of that jailer, of that scoundrel, of
her husband . . . Treachery! Bringing me low. Lower than herself. In
the dirt. That's what it means. Doesn't it? Under his heel!"
He paused in his restless shuffle and again, seizing his cap with both
hands, dragged it furiously right down on his ears. Powell had lost
himself in listening to these broken ravings, in looking at that old
feverish face when, suddenly, quick as lightning, Mr. Smith spun round,
snatched up the captain's glass and with a stifled, hurried exclamation,
"Here's luck," tossed the liquor down his throat.
"I know now the meaning of the word 'Consternation,'" went on Mr. Powell.
"That was exactly my state of mind. I thought to myself directly:
There's nothing in that drink. I have been dreaming, I have made the
awfulest mistake! . . ."
Mr. Smith put the glass down. He stood before Powell unharmed, quieted
down, in a listening attitude, his head inclined on one side, chewing his
thin lips. Suddenly he blinked queerly, grabbed Powell's shoulder and
collapsed, subsiding all at once as though he had gone soft all over, as
a piece of silk stuff collapses. Powell seized his arm instinctively and
checked his fall; but as soon as Mr. Smith was fairly on the floor he
jerked himself free and backed away. Almost as quick he rushed forward
again and tried to lift up the body. But directly he raised his
shoulders he knew that the man was dead! Dead!
He lowered him down gently. He stood over him without fear or any other
feeling, almost indifferent, far away, as it were. And then he made
another start and, if he had not kept Mrs. Anthony always in his mind, he
would have let out a yell for help. He staggered to her cabin-door, and,
as it was, his call for "Captain Anthony" burst out of him much too loud;
but he made a great effort of self-control. "I am waiting for my orders,
sir," he said outside that door distinctly, in a steady tone.