A Protégée of Jack Hamlins | Page 6

sentimental touch to
complete the idiotic situation. "I'll call you Sophy," he said hurriedly
and with an effort.
"And now look here! You are going in that cabin with Mrs. Johnson
where she can look after you, but I can't. So I'll have to take your word,
for I'm not going to give you away before Mrs. Johnson, that you won't
try that foolishness--you know what I mean--before I see you again.
Can I trust you?"
With her head still bowed over the chair back, she murmured slowly
somewhere from under her disheveled hair:--
"Yes."
"Honest Injin?" adjured Jack gravely.
"Yes."
The shuffling step of the stewardess was heard slowly approaching.
"Yes," continued Jack abruptly, lightly lifting his voice as Mrs. Johnson
opened the door,--"yes, if you'd only had some of those spearmint
drops of your aunt Rachel's that she always gave you when these fits
came on you'd have been all right inside of five minutes. Aunty was no
slouch of a doctor, was she? Dear me, it only seems yesterday since I
saw her. You were just playing round her knee like a kitten on the back
porch. How time does fly! But here's Mrs. Johnson coming to take you
in. Now rouse up, Sophy, and just hook yourself on to Mrs. Johnson on
that side, and we'll toddle along."
The young girl put back her heavy hair, and with her face still averted
submitted to be helped to her feet by the kindly stewardess. Perhaps
something homely sympathetic and nurse-like in the touch of the
mulatto gave her assurance and confidence, for her head lapsed quite

naturally against the woman's shoulder, and her face was partly hidden
as she moved slowly along the deck. Jack accompanied them to the
saloon and the inner stateroom door. A few passengers gathered
curiously near, as much attracted by the unusual presence of Jack
Hamlin in such a procession as by the girl herself. "You'll look after her
specially, Mrs. Johnson," said Jack, in unusually deliberate terms.
"She's been a good deal petted at home, and my sister perhaps has
rather spoilt her. She's pretty much of a child still, and you'll have to
humor her. Sophy," he continued, with ostentatious playfulness,
directing his voice into the dim recesses of the stateroom, "you'll just
think Mrs. Johnson's your old nurse, won't you? Think it's old Katy,
hey?"
To his great consternation the girl approached tremblingly from the
inner shadow. The faintest and saddest of smiles for a moment played
around the corners of her drawn mouth and tear-dimmed eyes as she
held out her hand and said:--
"God bless you for being so kind."
Jack shuddered and glanced quickly round. But luckily no one heard
this crushing sentimentalism, and the next moment the door closed
upon her and Mrs. Johnson.
It was past midnight, and the moon was riding high over the narrowing
yellow river, when Jack again stepped out on deck. He had just left the
captain's cabin, and a small social game with the officers, which had
served to some extent to vaguely relieve his irritation and their pockets.
He had presumably quite forgotten the incident of the afternoon, as he
looked about him, and complacently took in the quiet beauty of the
night.
The low banks on either side offered no break to the uninterrupted level
of the landscape, through which the river seemed to wind only as a race
track for the rushing boat. Every fibre of her vast but fragile bulk
quivered under the goad of her powerful engines. There was no other
movement but hers, no other sound but this monstrous beat and panting;
the whole tranquil landscape seemed to breathe and pulsate with her;

dwellers in the tules, miles away, heard and felt her as she passed, and
it seemed to Jack, leaning over the railing, as if the whole river swept
like a sluice through her paddle-boxes.
Jack had quite unconsciously lounged before that part of the railing
where the young girl had leaned a few hours ago. As he looked down
upon the streaming yellow mill-race below him, he noticed--what
neither he nor the girl had probably noticed before-- that a space of the
top bar of the railing was hinged, and could be lifted by withdrawing a
small bolt, thus giving easy access to the guards. He was still looking at
it, whistling softly, when footsteps approached.
"Jack," said a lazy voice, "how's sister Mary?"
"It's a long time since you've seen her only child, Jack, ain't it?" said a
second voice; "and yet it sort o' seems to me somehow that I've seen
her before."
Jack recognized the voice of two of his late companions at the
card-table. His whistling ceased; so also dropped every trace of color
and expression from his