"
"No, no, not on my account. I think I am past feeling any sentiment.
I would far rather do something, be of some use, however slight."
A pungent smell of iodoform came to them up the hatchway. Joey, who
had followed bravely in their wake, and was now a few steps down the
stairs, crept back, awed.
"At least, let me ask Dr. Christobal if you may come. You will be
quite safe here if you grip the rail. Even if a sea breaks over the
hatch it cannot touch you. May I leave you? And do you mind holding
Joey?"
Elsie detected a return to his earlier manner, and she was grateful to
him for it. She did not like him so well when he was stern and curt.
"Yes," she said. "That is only reasonable; but please tell him I shall
not be in the way, I know that there are wounded men to be attended,
and dead men down there, too. I shall not scream or faint, believe me."
"I am sure of that. Not one woman in a thousand could have played and
sung to cheer others, as you did after the accident happened."
It might have been the reaction from her exciting passage along the
deck, but Elsie experienced a sudden warm glow in her face.
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