Page 74 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

die, nor you neither.’ He took her hand. ‘It may knock off
a few dozen prisoners or so. They are pretty close packed
down there—‘
She drew her hand away; and then, remembering herself,
gave it him again.
‘What is the matter?’
‘Nothing—a pain. I did not sleep last night.’
‘There, there; you are upset, I dare say. Go and lie down.’
She was staring away past him over the sea, as if in
thought. So intently did she look that he involuntarily
turned his head, and the action recalled her to herself. She
brought her fine straight brows together for a moment, and
then raised them with the action of a thinker who has de-
cided on his course of conduct.
‘I have a toothache,’ said she, putting her hand to her
face.
‘Take some laudanum,’ says Blunt, with dim recollections
of his mother’s treatment of such ailments. ‘Old Pine’ll give
you some.’
To his astonishment she burst into tears.
‘There—there! Don’t cry, my dear. Hang it, don’t cry.
What are you crying about?’
She dashed away the bright drops, and raised her face
with a rainy smile of trusting affection. ‘Nothing! I am
lonely. So far from home; and—and Dr. Pine hurt my arm.
Look!’
She bared that shapely member as she spoke, and sure
enough there were three red marks on the white and shin-
ing flesh.