The convict raised his eyes and saw a young girl of eighteen
or nineteen years of age, tall, and well developed, who,
dressed in a loose-sleeved robe of some white material, was standing
in the doorway. She had black hair, coiled around a narrow and flat head,
a small foot, white skin, well-shaped hands, and large dark eyes,
and as she smiled at him, her scarlet lips showed her white even teeth.

He knew her at once. She was Sarah Purfoy, Mrs. Vickers's maid,
but he never had been so close to her before; and it seemed to him
that he was in the presence of some strange tropical flower,
which exhaled a heavy and intoxicating perfume.

For an instant the two looked at each other, and then Rufus Dawes
was seized from behind by his collar, and flung with a shock upon the deck.

Leaping to his feet, his first impulse was to rush upon his assailant,
but he saw the ready bayonet of the sentry gleam, and he checked himself
with an effort, for his assailant was Mr. Maurice Frere.

"What the devil do you do here?" asked the gentleman with an oath.
"You lazy, skulking hound, what brings you here? If I catch you
putting your foot on the quarter-deck again, I'll give you a week in irons!"

Rufus Dawes, pale with rage and mortification, opened his mouth
to justify himself, but he allowed the words to die on his lips.
What was the use? "Go down below, and remember what I've told you,"
cried Frere; and comprehending at once what had occurred,
he made a mental minute of the name of the defaulting sentry.