She waited a little longer, then with an indescribable look at the
helpless man below, she withdrew her head, pushed herself free, hung
to the invisible rope ladder for a moment, swaying against the open
port. His eyes were fastened on her where she dangled there against
the darkness betwixt sky and sea, oscillating with the movement of the
ship, her pendant figure now gilded by the light from the room, now
phantom dim as she swung outward.
As the roll of the ship brought her head to the level of the port once
more, she held up her pistol, shook it, and laughed at him: "Now do you believe that I can shoot?" she called out. "Answer me some
time when that mocking tongue of yours is free!"
Then, climbing slowly upward into darkness, the light, falling now
across her body, now athwart her skirt, gilded at last the heels of
her shoes; suddenly she was gone; then stars glittered through the
meshes of the shadowy, twitching ladder which still barred the open
port. And finally the ladder was pulled upward out of sight.
He waited. After a little while--an interminable interval to him--he
heard somebody stealthily trying the handle of the door; then came a
pause, silence, followed by a metallic noise as though the lock were
being explored or picked.
For a while the scraping, metallic sounds continued steadily, then
abruptly ceased as though the unseen meddler had been interrupted.
A voice--evidently the voice of the lock-picker--pitched to a cautious
key, was heard in protest as though objecting to some intentions
evident in the new arrival. Whispered expostulations continued for a
while, then the voices became quarrelsome and louder; and somebody
suddenly rapped on the door.
Then a thick, soft voice that he recognised with a chill, grew angrily
audible: "I say to you, steward, that I forbid you to entaire that room. I
forbid you to disturb thees yoong lady. Do you know who I am?"
"I don't care who you are----"
"I have authority. I shall employ it. You shall lose your berth! Thees
yoong lady within thees room ees my fiancée! I forbid you to enter
forcibly----"
"Haven't I knocked? Wot's spilin' you? I am doing my duty. Back away
from this 'ere door, I tell you!"
"You spik thees-a-way, so impolite----"
"Get out o' my way! Blime d'you think I'll stand 'ere jawin' any
longer?"
"I am membaire of Parliament----"
And the defiant voice of Jim's own little cockney steward retorted,
interrupting: "Ahr, stow it! Don't I tell you as how a lydy telephones me just now
that my young gentleman is in there? Get away from that door, you
blighter, or I'll bash your beak in!"
The door trembled under a sudden and terrific kick; the wordy quarrel
ceased; hurried steps retreated along the corridor; a pass key rattled
in the lock, and the door was flung wide open: "Mr. Neeland, sir--oh, my Gawd, wot ever 'ave they gone and done, sir,
to find you 'ere in such a 'orrid state!"