Maid for the beast

Maid for the beast CHAPTER II. PERHAPS A FOOL’S ERRAND. "I suffer nothing: I have no pain now. I am inexpressibly, happy," replies he, with a smile radiant, though languid. Forgetful of his unfortunate state, he raises his other hand, and, bringing it across the bed, tries to place it on Mona's. But the action is too much for him. His face takes a leaden hue, more ghastly than its former pallor, and, in spite of an heroic effort to suppress it, a deep groan escapes him.,Anson chuckled, "Well, you ain't goin' to get no chance to do any funny stunts this afternoon," he promised. "I'm here to keep an eye on you.","Indeed, are you?" asks she, raising her pretty brows. Then she smiles involuntarily, and the pink flush in her rounded cheeks grows a shade deeper. Yet she does not lower her eyes, or show the slightest touch of confusion. "I might have guessed it," she says, after a minute's survey of the tall gray-coated young man before her. "You are not a bit like the others down here.",It seemed rather pleasant to John, that his singing should be heard so far.,When he learned the conditions of the Abate's protection, and that the following day was appointed for the consecration of Julia, he was shocked, and paused in deliberation. A period so short as was this interval, afforded little opportunity for contrivance, and less for hesitation. The night of the present day was the only time that remained for the attempt and execution of a plan of escape, which if it then failed of success, Julia would not only be condemned for life to the walls of a monastery, but would be subjected to whatever punishment the severity of the Abate, exasperated by the detection, should think fit to inflict. The danger was desperate, but the occasion was desperate also.，"I say, this is fine!" declared David, as he looked about him in the palm-shaded, pink and gold dining-room. "Beats our refectory at the Prep, doesn't it, Tommy old boy?"，"Well, sir," answered Mr Pledge, pleased by the skipper's candour and condescension, "it's not for a plain sailor man like me to put his hand into such a tar-bucket as this. I know my bit, and I'm a-willing for to do it, and if the hands get to hear the story of the lady it'll come from her or from that there humpbacked steward who waits upon her, and not from me, for I'm for minding my own affairs, and sticking like a barnacle to a ship's bottom to the ondertakings I enter into."，"He felt the light," said the boy, "an' he sang all the way back home.""Thank God," he whispered, and stood trembling. Then, as though to himself, he said softly: "It is as though her soft hand touched these eyes that will never see again."

She lowered her voice as two newcomers entered—one a slender, faded young woman with near-sighted pale eyes, and the other a blond girl with a dazzling skin and glorious shimmering hair wound around a shapely head. Both were in aprons, but the younger wore a dull green that set off her fair beauty to perfection, while the checked gingham of the other proclaimed a hopelessly downright taste.,"Yes, that is just what occurred to me," says Mona, nodding her head sympathetically.,“Oh, no, no! I’m fit—I must find her myself—right now!”,"Oh, say no more, sir, about that. I am pleased with the idea of a Naval officer being in charge of my ship.",Drowsily Jerry demanded, “What’s so all-fired funny, you early bird?”,"Well, Billy," he said with a twinkle in his eye, "seein's we're to be right close related, some day, I guess it's up to me to give you your supper. You go right along over to the house and eat with Ann.",“That’s great! I sure hope he does. I’ll be back all right—that is, if you’ll have a place for me,” Bob finished, speaking to Mr. Whitney who had come up to the group.,"My dear young lady," he remonstrated, "why distress yourself with recollections of these things?",Mr Lawrence looked at the clock which was affixed to the house at the end of the wharf in which Captain Acton had his offices, and was about to leave the ship to make his way to "The Swan," when a man who had been standing a few moments on the quay side at the foot of the gangway boards, stepped across and saluted him.,Bob looked up to see a young fellow of about his own age coming towards them. He was rather tall and dark and dressed in khaki, and wore canvas leggins. It was the costume of a regular civil engineer, thought the boy from the East.,He gazed at the sleeping figure for two or[Pg 307] three minutes and then left, again locking the door. He entered his own cabin and stretched his form along the lower bunk; but used as he was to sleep well in an hour betwixt one scene of slaughter, of belching broadsides, of fierce and murderous boarding and another scene scarred by the cannon flame, terrible with its thunder of guns whose muzzles yawned close to the muzzles of the foe, slumber was not to be his.,"Naw, can't you see if we told our dads that, they'd want 'a know what you an' me was doin' out in Scroggie's bush in the rain, at that hour of the night? No siree, we won't say a word 'bout it.".