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The Flag of the Adventurer.
"Steady!" said her husband sharply, retrieving her from an unintentional rush across the deck, and setting her up in a corner. "What's the matter with you--eh?"
"The matter?" Eveleen's Irish mind was so unhappily constituted that it saw humour where none was visible to others. She began to laugh weakly. "The matter? Oh, nothing at all, of course!"
"Hysterics now, I suppose." Richard Ambrose's voice was rough.
"Exaggeration is not wit," he growled. "You have my free leave to feel as you like, provided it don't make you go about knocking people down."
Tears--never very far from laughter in Irish eyes--rose rebelliously, and Eveleen turned quickly to gaze at the shore whose first appearance she had hailed with so much joy. There was nothing particularly attractive about the long line of mud-coloured coast backed by low mud-coloured hills, beyond a wide--still horribly wide--waste of tumbling waters; but it was land, blessed solid land! The man against whom she had cannoned spoke suddenly--she had the instant idea that he had been trying to make up his mind whether the circumstances warranted his addressing her without an introduction.
"The fact is, ma'am, ladies have no business in these steamboats. The cabin may have seemed uncommon incommodious to you, but in order that you and your companions might enjoy it, four of the gentlemen on board had no cabin at all."
"Oh!" in dismay. "But 'twas not for you to tell me that!" she flashed out at him.
"I had a reason, ma'am--to convince you that you should not be here."
"And pray, sir, what other way would we poor females get to Khemistan?"
"My point precisely, ma'am." He spoke under difficulties, swaying to and fro and holding fast to the rail. "Khemistan is no place for European females--nor will be for years to come. But when charming ladies take it into their pretty heads to go there, what is poor Hubby to do? 'My dear, believe me, I can't take you with me.' 'Oh, but you will, won't you?' 'Quite impossible, my dear.' 'Ah, but you can do it if you like, I know. And you must.' And he does--naturally."
Richard Ambrose chuckled disagreeably, and the colour rose in his wife's cheeks. "It's a bachelor y'are, sir, by your own confession," she said sweetly to the stranger. "No married man would dare to draw such a picture. The best I can wish you is that you may find how true it is!" She meant to end with a little contemptuous curtsey, but the moment she loosed her hold of the shawl over her head, the wind caught it and hurled it full in the stranger's face. This time he did lose his footing, and went slipping and sliding across the deck till he was brought up by the bulwarks.
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