CHAPTER XXIV.

REWARD FOR A LIFE.

Two men came down from deck and carried the fainting woman up, and brought her into the pier-master's little room, and left her to the kindly offices of some sympathetic women; while the two boatmen dragged the half-stunned, half-drowned Crawford out of the river over the stern of the boat, and then, after allowing some of the water to run out of his clothes, helped him up the accommodation-ladder to the deck of the hulk.

Here men squeezed his clothes and rubbed him down, and told him how thankful he ought to be that he had not been drowned, as he was within an ace of being drawn under the hulk, and if once that had happened his chance of ever seeing daylight again would have been small indeed. Was he a good swimmer?

No, he could not swim a yard.

Well, then, he had better for the future keep out of the water. Yes, of course he had lost his hat; but a sou'wester of the pierman's was at his service temporarily. No? He wouldn't have it? Very well. Better any day lose one's hat than one's life. He was very wet indeed; but, then, when a man has been in the river one must expect to turn out wet upon fetching port.

Why had his position been so very dangerous? Was it more dangerous than that of a man falling overboard under ordinary circumstances?

A thousand times. For he had fallen against the hulk and boomed off the boat, and in booming her off his back had slid down the side of the hulk until his heels were higher than his head, and as he left the boat his heels, driven by the force of the tide on the sheer of the boat, would thrust him inward and downwards and so under the bottom of the hulk, and then good-bye to him, particularly as he could not swim.

And how then came he to be saved?

Why, by the woman laying hold of him just as he slipped out, and sticking to him; for, owing to the list to starboard the passengers gave the boat, the boatmen durst not move, or she'd capsize for certain.

The woman laying hold of him? It was all dark to him.

Of course it was all dark to him, and a good job it had ever come light to him again. Why, the woman who had sat beside him! A poor sorrowful-looking creature, who wore a veil and kept her hands across her eyes.

He had noticed her. And where was she now?

In the master's room in a dead faint. She had fainted the moment they told her she might let him go. She looked a poor soul that had had her troubles, and if he thought well of doing such a thing, perhaps he might do worse than give her a trifle by way of reward.

A trifle! A trifle for saving his life! He could and he would reward her most handsomely. Had she recovered yet?

It was believed not. And now they had squeezed all they could out of him--unless he'd like to give them something for their trouble, for they had to go back at once.

He handed a wet and clammy five-pound note to be divided as they thought best among themselves.

He was generous, for had not a great life been at stake?

Was he going ashore, or going on? He had better get dry clothes.

He should stay until that woman was well enough to receive the reward for the great services she had rendered him.

The boatmen descended the accommodation-ladder, and Crawford, partly to keep off a chill and partly to prevent the people on the pier from accosting him, began walking up and down the deck at a brisk rate.

He had two reasons for not going to Welford for dry clothes. First, he did not wish to weaken the effect of his visit and words of that morning by so early a reappearance; and second, he did not care to present himself to Hetty in his miserable and undignified plight.

When he had money he liked carrying large sums about with him, for he never felt so sure of the possession of it as when he could tap a pocket-book containing a sheaf of notes.

He made up his mind to give this woman fifty pounds, for had she not done him the greatest service any man, woman or child ever performed towards him? had she not saved his life, and was she not worthy of the highest reward he could pay? He had no more than fifty pounds and some broken money.

In a few minutes the pier-master, who had heard him speak of the reward, came and said the poor woman had fully recovered, and asked if Crawford would wish to see her.

"By all means. I must get these wet clothes off as soon as possible. When is the next boat up?"

"In about five or ten minutes." The pier-master moved off, and returned immediately to say the woman was ready and willing to receive him. Adding, "It's a kind of thing we'd like to see done, as we saw her save your life, and know you are open-handed and have a good heart; but she says she'd rather there was only you two."

"Alone!" said Crawford in a tone of surprise. "It is a kind of thing generally done openly. Did you tell her I wished to give her a reward?"

"Yes, sir. She said you would know before you left her why she preferred no one should be present."

"Well," said Crawford, who felt that this was an attempt to keep the generosity of his gift from the eyes of others, "I am going to give her these five tenners." He held out the notes in his hand and turned them over, and then, still keeping them in his hand lest some one might suspect a trick, stepped into the pier-master's private room or cabin.

It was a very tiny room, with a small table in the middle, a writing-table in one of the two windows, and three chairs. There seemed to be no space for moving about. Even if the chairs were out of the way, two people could not walk abreast round the centre table.

Standing with her back to the second window Crawford found the woman who had saved his life less than half-an-hour ago. Her veil, which had been disarranged in the struggle, was now close drawn.

With the notes in one hand and holding out the other to grasp hers in his gratitude, he was about to advance, when she held up her hand and said in a hoarse dull voice, "No nearer. I have been very ill. It is safer our hands should not meet."

He sprang back as far as the walls would allow. He had the most intense horror of contagious diseases. He was now in the most fervent haste to bring the interview to an end. He would freely have given another fifty to be out of that room.

"I merely wished to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the noble manner in which you snatched my life from death, to offer you this fifty pounds as a small token of the esteem in which I hold the services you have rendered me;" he shook the notes, but did not advance his hand any nearer to the centre of contagion; "and to say that my everlasting gratitude must be yours." He could always make a little speech.

"There was a time," she said in her peculiar hoarse, dull voice, "when I should have been very glad to take those fifty pounds--ay, as many shillings--from you, but I cannot take them now."

"There was a time!" said he, surprised, and interested notwithstanding his fear of disease; "surely I could not have had the privilege of offering them to you longer ago than an hour."

"You could," she said, "and you ought."

"May I ask," said he, fairly carried away by curiosity, "if the disease of which you speak was of a nervous character?"

"You mean, was my mind affected?"

"Yes, if you choose to put it that way?"

"It was, but unfortunately I have not been in an asylum; even the grave that they told me was gaping for me closed of its own accord. It was the last door open to me, and it is shut now."

"But if your disease was mental, I cannot understand why we might not shake hands; why I might not shake the hand of my rescuer."

"Because she could not touch yours. It is in _your_ hand the contamination lies."

"Poor creature!" he thought, "mad!--quite mad! To say such a thing of me, who am never ill--of the soundest man in London! I, who take such care not to be ill!" He laughed one of his short sharp laughs, and said aloud, "Contagion in my hand! And who am I?"

"I do not know who you are _now_." At the emphasised word he sprang into the air off the ground as though he had been shot, and then took a pace towards her, and paused and looked furtively at the door.

Was she, too, armed?

She also took a pace forward. They were not now two yards apart. With a scornful gesture she tore the veil from before her face and, looking into his, cried, "And who am _I?_"

The face was haggard and blotched.

He sprang back against the wall, crying:

"Good heavens, Kate, this is not you!"

"Yes, this is Kate. I saved your life to-day, and you offer me fifty pounds. How glad I should have been to get as many shillings when you left me and my child to starve in America! I saved your life to-day, and you offer me a reward. I will take it----"

He held out the notes to her.

She pushed his hand aside with a laugh.

"The reward I want you to give me cannot be bought for money--not even for your splendid fifty pounds. I saved your life to-day; give me for reward my husband and my child, and my innocence. It is a fair demand. You cannot give me less, John Ainsworth."

She thrust her hand suddenly into her pocket.

"She is armed!" he cried, and, bursting from the room, he leaped aboard a steamer then a foot from the pier on its way up to London.