veritable little fury, between her friends and the prostrate Italian.

"_Garn! Don't yer dare to tech 'er! Garn! Garn!_" she cried and
poised, tense, vicious, ready to pit her puny strength against his
might if he should rise, vanquish Vanderlyn and try, again, to trouble
Anna and her father.

But members of the ship's crew now rushed up, and, seemingly almost
against their will (Moresco, being in New York City politics, might
control much steerage business for the line), but yielding to the loud
demand of many passengers above, who, attracted by the shouts, had
crowded to the rail, caught the man as, rising, he would have sprung
upon the young American. A moment later and he had been dragged away
and the blushing rescuer of beauty in distress and old age vanquished,
had, stammering in embarrassment before the thanks of his two
beneficiaries, gone back to his own part of the ship. He might have
wholly lost his self-possession had not the vicious glance of the
Italian and a shouted curse come to him while the man was struggling
viciously with his unwilling captors. It cheered him unto laughter to
hear Moresco laying claim to that mysterious importance which he had
so often boasted, and note that he was threatening him with awful
things. Much more interesting he found the small scene he was leaving,
in which two utterly bewildered and astonished Germans and a little
cockney girl were the three actors.

"_M'ri_-arrr! _M'ri_-arrr!" he heard Anna cry in sheer amazement.
"_M'ri_-arrr!"

"Mine Gott im himmel! It is M'ria-arrr!" he heard Kreutzer say.