Trade Wind by M. M. Kaye

some drowned sailor sent to set her on her way. But if she were dead she would surely not be in such pain, and it was an undeniable fact that every single part of her body was bruised and aching.
    She could feel the warm, steady trickle of blood from her cut lip and from another cut on her temple, and there seemed to be a haze before her eyes; a haze full of odd, dancing lights. Her gaze moved slowly from the man’s face, and she saw that she was lying on the floor of a strange cabin, though it still pitched and rolled as dizzily as her own had done. A passenger’s cabin.
    She said in the same husky whisper: “Why haven’t I…seen…you…before?”
    The stranger laughed and said: “No reason why you should, is there?”
    A faint flicker of indignation arose in Miss Hollis, and she said more strongly: “You were the one who was laughing. Why did you laugh? It was not at all funny.”
    The man laughed again with regrettable heartlessness, and said: “Perhaps not to you. But it isn’t every day we hook a mermaid.”
    His voice was curiously clipped, while at the same time possessing a faint suggestion of a drawl. An English voice, thought Hero dizzily. Why, I believe he’s English !
    The man came to his feet, and bending down lifted her as easily and carelessly as though she had been a side of bacon, and deposited her in a large leather-covered chair that seemed to be screwed to the cabin floor. Standing over her he looked very tall. Taller than Captain Fullbright—or Clay.
    He said: “You’re an exceedingly lucky young woman. You ought by rights to be drowned, and but for a miracle you would have been. However, I suppose the same could be said for all of us. That was the closest I’ve ever been to the next world, which is saying a good deal. Here, you’d better take a drink of this to replace some of the water we’ve tilted out of you.”
    He reached for a tin pannikin that stood in a wooden holder against the wall, filled it from a silver flask, and finding that her hands were too bruised and nerveless to take it, held it to her mouth while she drank.
    The fiery liquid burned Hero’s throat and brought a stab of agonizing pain to her cut lip, but though she coughed and choked she managed to swallow a reasonable quantity of it and was grateful for the glow of warmth it brought to her cold stomach. But the relief was only temporary, for presently she began to shiver violently and found that she had to clench her teeth to prevent them from chattering. She wished that she could lie down somewhere—anywhere. On the floor if necessary, but preferably in her own berth. If only she could contrive to get back to her cabin and out of these dreadful sodden clothes she could crawl into her berth and go to sleep. But there was something that must be said first, and she frowned in an effort to concentrate, and forcing the words between her chattering teeth said: “D-did you…w-was it you who p-pulled me out?”
    “Among others.”
    “T-then I have to t-thank you for s-saving my life. I am t-truly grateful.”
    The tall man grinned and said: “It’s your guardian angel you should thank, my girl. I didn’t arrange to snarl you up in that mass of torn rigging, and it was that and nothing else that saved your life. We only had to haul you in. And by the look of you we gave you a pretty rough time in the process!”
    Hero attempted to return his smile, but found that her mouth was so cut and swollen that the effort was too painful, and abandoning it she asked instead for Mrs Fullbright: “If she is n-not too ill I w-would like to see her, please. A-at once. And if you w-would be so k-kind as to ask the Captain to come here—”
    “He’s here,” said the tall man briefly. “I’m the Captain. You’re on the wrong ship, young woman. No Mrs Fullbrights here. In fact no other woman of any sort, which is a piece of bad luck for you. Or good luck, whichever way you choose to look at it.”
    He grinned at Hero, who said