He ran to her; she clutched at him incoherently….
“She’s shot him—Oh! she’s shot him….”
Simon Doyle still lay as he had fallen half into and across a chair…Jacqueline stood as though paralysed. She was trembling violently, and her eyes, dilated and frightened, were staring at the crimson stain slowly soaking through Simon’s trouser leg just below the knee where he held a handkerchief close against the wound.
She stammered out:
“I didn’t mean…Oh, my God, I didn’t really mean….”
The pistol dropped from her nervous fingers with a clatter on the floor. She kicked it away with her foot. It slid under one of the settees.
Simon, his voice faint, murmured: “Fanthorp, for heaven’s sake—there’s someone coming…Say it’s all right—an accident—something. There mustn’t be a scandal over this.”
Fanthorp nodded in quick comprehension. He wheeled round to the door where a startled Nubian face showed. He said: “All right—all right! Just fun!”
The black face looked doubtful, puzzled, then reassured. The teeth showed in a wide grin. The boy nodded and went off.
Fanthorp turned back.
“That’s all right. Don’t think anybody else heard. Only sounded like a cork, you know. Now the next thing—”
He was startled. Jacqueline suddenly began to weep hysterically.
“Oh, God, I wish I were dead…I’ll kill myself.
I’ll be better dead…Oh, what have I done—what have I done?”
Cornelia hurried to her.
“Hush, dear, hush.”
Simon, his brow wet, his face twisted with pain, said urgently:
“Get her away. For God’s sake, get her out of here! Get her to her cabin, Fanthorp. Look here, Miss Robson, get that hospital nurse of yours.” He looked appealingly from one to the other of them. “Don’t leave her. Make quite sure she’s safe with the nurse looking after her. Then get hold of old Bessner and bring him here. For God’s sake, don’t let any news of this get to my wife.”
Jim Fanthorp nodded comprehendingly. The quiet young man was cool and competent in an emergency.
Between them, he and Cornelia got the weeping, struggling girl out of the saloon and along the deck to her cabin. There they had more trouble with her. She fought to free herself; her sobs redoubled.
“I’ll drown myself…I’ll drown myself….
I’m not fit to live…Oh, Simon—Simon!”
Fanthorp said to Cornelia: “Better get hold of Miss Bowers. I’ll stay while you get her.”
Cornelia nodded and hurried out.
As soon as she left, Jacqueline clutched Fanthorp.
“His leg—it’s bleeding—broken…He may bleed to death. I must go to him…Oh, Simon—Simon—how could I?”
Her voice rose. Fanthorp said urgently: “Quietly—quietly…He’ll be all right.”
She began to struggle again.
“Let me go! Let me throw myself overboard…Let me kill myself!”
Fanthorp holding her by the shoulders forced her back on to the bed.