"I don't believe she'd think much of sticking a man, either!"
he said, rising. "But I must go on deck, doctor." Pine followed him
more slowly. "I don't pretend to know much about women,"
he said to himself, "but that girl's got a story of her own,
or I'm much mistaken. What brings her on board this ship as lady's-maid
is more than I can fathom." And as, sticking his pipe between his teeth,
he walked down the now deserted deck to the main hatchway,
and turned to watch the white figure gliding up and down the poop-deck,
he saw it joined by another and a darker one, he muttered,
"She's after no good, I'll swear."

At that moment his arm was touched by a soldier in undress uniform,
who had come up the hatchway. "What is it?"

The man drew himself up and saluted.

"If you please, doctor, one of the prisoners is taken sick,
and as the dinner's over, and he's pretty bad, I ventured
to disturb your honour."

"You ass!" says Pine--who, like many gruff men, had a good heart
under his rough shell--"why didn't you tell me before?"
and knocking the ashes out of his barely-lighted pipe,
he stopped that implement with a twist of paper and followed his summoner
down the hatchway.

In the meantime the woman who was the object of the grim old fellow's
suspicions was enjoying the comparative coolness of the night air.
Her mistress and her mistress's daughter had not yet come
out of their cabin, and the men had not yet finished their evening's tobacco.