He snorted disparagingly. “A threat! From you!” He ran his eyes over me insultingly. His sneering smile dismissed me.

The blood was pounding in my ears. Yet, strangely, I suddenly felt that I was in full control of this encounter. I cannot explain how pleasing that sensation was; it was rather like holding an excellent hand of cards when everyone else at the table assumes you are bluffing. I smiled at him. “You’d be wise to be thankful for this warning from me. The opportunity will not come again.” I’d never felt so dangerous in my life.

He seemed to sense how I dismissed his bluster. His face flushed an ugly scarlet. “Make way!” he demanded through gritted teeth.

“Of course,” I acceded. I not only stepped back, but also offered him my hand as if to assist him. “Be careful!” I warned him. “The stairs are steeper than they appear. Watch your footing. It would be a shame if you stumbled.”

“Do not speak to me!” he all but shouted. He tried to cuff my hand out of the way. Instead, I caught his elbow, gripped it firmly, and assisted him up the first step. I felt the iron of my strength as I did so; I think he did, too. “Let go!” he snarled at me.

“So glad to help you,” I replied sweetly as I released him. I stepped back two steps, and then gestured to his companions that they should follow him. The girl rushed past me and up the steps, with her companion a stride behind her. He shot me a look of alarm as he passed, as if he thought I might suddenly attack him. I was walking away when I heard a shout above me, and then a man’s roar of pain. One of them must have slipped in his panic. The woman mewed sympathetically at whichever man had fallen. I could not make out his words, for they were choked with pain. I chuckled as I walked away. I was to dine at the captain’s table that evening, and I suddenly found that I anticipated the meal with a heartier than usual appetite.

The next morning, as I enjoyed a good breakfast, I overhead gossip at our table that a young man had slipped and fallen on the stairs. “A very bad break,” an old woman with a flowered fan exclaimed to the lady beside her. “The bone poked right out of his flesh! Can you imagine! Just from a missed step on the stair!” I felt unreasonably guilty when I heard the extent of the young man’s injuries, then decided that he had brought them on himself. Doubtless he’d missed a riser; if he hadn’t mocked me, he would not have felt obliged to use such haste in fleeing from me.

When next I caught sight of their small party in the late afternoon, the young man I had “assisted” on the stairs was absent. When one of the women saw me, I saw her give a gasp of dismay and immediately turn and walk off in the other direction. Her friend and their remaining male companion followed her just as hastily. For the rest of the voyage they assiduously avoided me, and I overheard no more remarks or giggling. Yet it was not the relief that I had hoped it would be. Instead, a tiny niggle of guilt remained with me, as if my bad wishes for the fellow had caused his fall. I did not enjoy the women being fearful of me any more than I had enjoyed their derision. Both things seemed to make me someone other than who I truly was.