out for a fog-horn to the Scilly Isles, you'd gonear to make your fortune! Is the young lady deaf that you want to bawllike a harbour-master? Easy, my man," says I, "you'll hurt yourbeautiful throat."
Well, he turned round savage enough, but my mistress, who had stood allthe while like a statue, spoke now for the first time, and holding outboth her hands to me, she cried:
"Oh, Captain Begg, Captain Begg, is it you at last, to walk right herelike this? I can't believe it," she said; "I really can't believe it!"
"Why, that's so," said I, catching her American accent, which was theprettiest thing you ever heard; "I'm on the way to 'Frisco, and I putin here according to my promise. My ship's out yonder, Miss Ruth, andthere's some aboard that knows you--Peter Bligh and Mister Jacob; andthis one, this is little Dolly Venn," said I, presenting him, "thoughhe'll grow bigger by-and-bye."
With this I pushed the boy forward, and he, all silly and blushing assailors will be when they see a pretty woman above their station--hetook her hand and heaved it like a pump-handle; while old Aunt Rachel,the funny old woman in the glasses, she began to talk a lot of nonsenseabout seamen, as she always did, and for a minute or two we might havebeen a party of friends met at a street corner.
"I'm glad to find you well, Captain Begg," said she. "Such a dangerouslife, too, the mariner's. I always pity you poor fellows when you climbthe rattlesnakes on winter's nights."
"Ratlins, you mean, ma'am," said I, "though for that matter, a syllableor two don't count either way. And I hope you're not poorly, ma'am, onthis queer shore."
"I like the island," says she, solemn and stiff-like; "my dear nephewis an eccentric, but we must take our bread as we find it on thisearth, Mister Begg, and thankful for it too. Poor Ruth, now, she isdreadfully distressed and unhappy; but I tell her it will all comeright in the end. Let her be patient a little while and she will haveher own way. She wants for nothing here--she has every comfort. If herhusband chooses such a home for her, she must submit. It is our duty tosubmit to our husbands, captain, as the catechism teaches us."
"Aye, when you've got 'em," thought I, but I nodded my head to the oldlady, and turned to my mistress, who was now speaking to me.
"You'll lunch here; why, yes, captain--you mustn't find usinhospitable, even if you leave us at once. Mr. Denton, will you pleaseto tell them that Captain Begg lunches with me--as soon as possible?"
She turned to the yellow man to give him the order; but there was nomistaking the look which passed between them, saying on her side:"Allow me to do this," on his, "You will suffer for it afterwards." Buthe went up to the veranda of the house right enough, and while he wasbawling to the cook, I spoke the first plain word to Mme. Czerny.
"Mistress," I said, "the ship's there--shall we go or stay?"
I had meant it to be the plain truth between us; on her part theconfession whether she needed me or did not; on mine the will to serveher whatever might happen to me. To my dying day, I shall never forgether answer.
"Go," she said, so low that it was little more than a whisper, "but,oh, for God's sake, Jasper Begg, come back to me again."
I nodded my head and turned the talk. The man Denton, the one with theyellow beard (rated as Kess Denton on the island), was back at my sidealmost before she had finished. The old lady began to talk about"curling-spikes" and "blue Saint Peters," and how much the anchorweighed, and all that sort of blarney which she thought ship-shape andsuited to a poor sailor-man's understanding. I told her a story of ashark that swallowed a missionary and his hymn-book, and always swamround our ship at service times afterwards--and that kept her thinkinga bit. As for little Dolly Venn, he couldn't keep his eyes off MissRuth--and I didn't wonder, for mine went that way pretty often. Aye,she had changed, too, in those twelve months that had passed since lastI saw her, the prettiest bride that ever held out a finger for a ringin the big church at Nice. Her cheeks were all fallen away and flushedwith a colour which was cruelly unhealthy to see. The big blue eyes,which I used to see full of laughter and a young girl's life, wereringed round with black, and pitiful when they looked at you. The hairparted above the forehead, as it always was, and brought down in curlsabove her little ears, didn't seem to me so full of golden threads asit used to be. But it was good to hear her plucky talk, there at thedinner-table, when she chattered away like some sweet-singing bird, andDolly couldn't turn away his eyes, and the yellow boy stood, sour andsavage, behind her chair, and threw out hints for me to sheer off whichmight have moved the Bass Rock. Not that he need have troubled himself,for I had made up my mind already what to do; and no sooner was thefood stowed away than I up and spoke about the need of getting onagain, and such like. And with that I said "Good-bye" to Mistress Ruthand "Good-bye" to the old woman, and had a shot left in my locker forthe yellow boy, which I don't doubt pleased him mightily.
"Good luck to you," says I; "if you'd a wisp of your hair, I'd put itin my locket and think of you sometimes. When you want anything fromLondon you just shout across the sea and we'll be hearing you.Deadman's Horn is nothing to you," said I; "you'd scare a ship out ofthe sea, if you wasn't gentle to her."
Mind you, I said all this as much to put him off as anything else, forI'd been careful enough to blab no word about the Southern Cross beingMiss Ruth's very own ship, nor about her orders that we should call atKen's Island; and I knew that when a man's angry at what you say to himhe doesn't think much of two and two making four, but as often as notmakes them eight or ten. May-be, said I, he'll make it out that I'm ona tramp bound for 'Frisco and have touched here on the way--andcertainly he won't look for my coming back again once he sees our smokeon the sky-line. Nor was I wrong. My mistress was to tell me that muchbefore twelve hours had passed.
And so it was that I said "Good-bye" to her, she standing at thegarden-gate with a brave smile upon her pretty face, and the yellow manbehind her like a savage dog that is afraid to bite, but has all themind to. At the valley's head I turned about, and she was still there,looking up wistfully to the hills we trod. Thrice I waved my hand toher, and thrice she answered, and then together, the lad and I, weentered the dark wood and saw her no more.
"Your best leg forward, lad," said I to him, "and mum's the word.There's work to do on the ship, and work ashore for a woman's sake. Areyou game for that, Dolly--are you game, my boy?"
Well, he didn't answer me. Some one up in the black gorge above fired arifle just as I spoke; and the bullet came singing down like a bird onthe wing. Not a soul could I see, not a sound could I hear when therolling echoes had passed away. It was just the silence of the thicketand of the great precipices which headed it--a silence which mightfreeze a man's heart because the danger which threatened him washidden.
"Crouch low to the rocks, lad, and go easy," cried I, when my wits cameback again; "that's a tongue it doesn't do to quarrel with. The dirtyskunks--to fire on unarmed men! But we'll return it, Dolly; as I liveI'll fire a dozen for every one they send us."
"Return it, sir," says he; "but aren't you going aboard?"
"Aye," says I, "and coming back again like drift on an open sea. Nowlet me see you skip across that bridge, and no mistake about it."
He darted across the chasm's bridge like a chamois. I followed himquick and clumsy. If my heart was in my mouth--well, let that pass. Notfor my own sake did I fear mortal man that day, but for the sake of awoman whose very life I believed to be in danger.
CHAPTER IV
WE GO ABOARD, BUT RETURN AGAIN
We made the ship safely when twenty minutes were passed, and tenminutes later, Mister Jacob and Peter Bligh were in my cabin with me.
"Lads," I said, for it was not a day when a man picked his talk;"lads," said I, "this ship goes full steam ahead for 'Frisco, andyou'll be wanting to know the reason why. Well, that's right andproper. Let me tell you that she's steaming to 'Frisco because it's theshortest way to Ken's Island."
They looked queer at this, but my manner kept them silent. Every manaboard the Southern Cross had heard the gun fired up in the h
ills, andevery one knew that Dolly Venn and the skipper had raced for theirlives to the water's edge. "What next?" they asked; and I meant to tellthem.
"Yes," said I, "the shortest way to Ken's Island, and no mistake aboutit. For what does a man do when he sees some one in a house and thefront door's slammed in his face? Why, he goes to the back doorcertainly, and for choice when the night's