cordial, pleasant tones. There were
better talkers, wittier, brighter women within hail--women who kept
their hearers laughing much of the time, which Miss Ray did not, yet he
shrank from the possibility of one of their number accosting him.

Twice he was conscious that Dr. Wells and Miss Porter had tip-toed close
and were peering interestedly at him, but he shut his eyes and would not
see or hear. He did not "want to be bothered," it was only too evident,
and as the ship's bell chimed the hour of noon and the watch changed,
his would-be visitors slipped silently away and he was alone.

When the doctor came cautiously towards him a few minutes later,
Stuyvesant was to all appearances sleeping, and the "medico" rejoiced in
the success of his scheme. When, not five minutes after the doctor
peeped at him, the voice of the captain was heard booming from the
bridge just over the patient's pillowed head, it developed that the
patient was wide awake. Perhaps what the captain said would account for
this.

A dozen times on the voyage that mariner had singled out Miss Ray for
some piece of attention. Now, despite the fact that almost the entire
Red Cross party were seated or strolling or reclining there under the
canvas awning and he must have known it, although they were hidden from
his view, he again made that young lady the object of his homage. She
was at the moment leaning over the rail, with Sandy by her side, gazing
at the dark blue, beautiful waters that, flashing and foam-crested, went
sweeping beneath her. The monarch of the ship, standing at the outer end
of the bridge, had caught sight of her and gave tongue at once. A good
seaman was the captain and a stalwart man, but he knew nothing of tact
or discretion.

"Oh, Miss Ray," he bawled, "come up on the bridge and I'll show you the
chart. Bring the lieutenant."

For an instant she hesitated, reluctant. Not even the staff of the
commanding officer had set foot on that sacred perch since the voyage
began, only when especially bidden or at boat or fire drill did that
magnate himself presume to ascend those stairs. As for her sister
nurses, though they had explored the lower regions and were well
acquainted with the interior arrangement of the Sacramento, and were
consumed with curiosity and desire to see what was aloft on the
hurricane-deck, the stern prohibition still staring at them in bold,
brazen letters, "Passengers are Forbidden upon the Bridge," had served
to