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On an officer lounging to the rail and looking down, however, he subsided into a low muttering. The story of how McWhirter happened to be floating on the bosom of the Delaware River before five o'clock in the morning was a long one it was months before I got it in full.
This being in the neighborhood where Mac had thought he saw something move, we approached with extreme caution. But nothing more ominous was discovered than the port lifeboat, nothing more ghostly heard than the occasional creak with which it rocked in its davits. The lifeboat seemed to be indicated by the cross. It swung almost shoulder-high on McWhirter.
He came frequently to see me, bringing always a pocketful of chewing gum, which he assured me was excellent to allay the gnawings of hunger, and later, as my condition warranted it, small bags of gum-drops and other pharmacy confections. McWhirter it was who got me my berth on the Ella. It must have been about the 20th of July, for the Ella sailed on the 28th.
McWhirter made an effort to reassure her. "It wouldn't be a hanging matter, anyhow," he said. "There's a lot against him, but hardly a jury in the country would hang a man for something he did, if he could prove he was delirious the next day." She paled at this dubious comfort, but it struck her sense of humor, too, for she threw me a fleeting smile. "I was to ask you to do something," she said.
They were going back to New York in the morning, and things were terribly wrong. "Wrong? You need not mind Mr. McWhirter. He is as anxious as I am to be helpful." "There are detectives watching Marshall; we saw one to-day at the hotel. If the jury disagrees and the lawyers think they will they will arrest him." I thought it probable. There was nothing I could say.
McWhirter. She's rather a superior gal, sir, though I say it myself. She's had a rattling good eddication; talks French like a native, and as for music and singing, I've never heard any gal as could touch her, that's a fact. Here she is." Smith was not sorry that the outflow of paternal pride was checked. He wanted to get on. A girl of about twenty came forward with the mate.
McWhirter had taken a room for me for a day or two to give me time to look about; and, his own leave of absence from his hospital being for ten days, we had some time together. My situation was better than it had been in the summer. I had my strength again, although the long confinement had told on me. But my position was precarious enough. I had my pay from the Ella, and nothing else.
Accustomed to regular exercise as I was, I suffered mentally and physically. I heard nothing from Elsa Lee, and I missed McWhirter, who had got his hospital appointment, and who wrote me cheering letters on pages torn from order-books or on prescription-blanks. He was in Boston. He got leave of absence for the trial, and, as I explained, the following notes are his, not mine.
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