The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack. R. Austin Freeman
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gazed at her in dismay. “But, Betty,” he protested, “you don’t seem to grasp the position. There is a warrant out for my arrest.”
“Who cares?” she responded. “Besides, there isn’t. John Osmond is dead and there is no warrant out for Captain James Cook. It is you who don’t grasp the position.”
“But,” he expostulated, “don’t you realize that I can never go home? That I can’t even show my face in Europe?”
“Very well,” said she. “So much the worse for Europe. But there are plenty of other places; and what is good enough for you is good enough for me. Now, Jim, dear,” she added, coaxingly, “don’t create difficulties. You have said that you love me—I think I knew it before you told me—and that is all that matters to me. Everything else is trivial. You are the man to whom I have given my heart, and I am not going to have you crying off.”
“Good God, Betty!” he groaned, “don’t talk about ‘crying off.’ If you only know what it means to me to look into Paradise and be forced to turn away! But, my dearest love, it has to be. I would give my life for you gladly, joyfully. I am giving more than my life in refusing the sacrifice that you, in the nobleness of your heart, are willing to make. But I could never accept it. I could never stoop to the mean selfishness of spoiling the life of the woman who is more to me than all the world.”
“I am offering no sacrifice,” she said. “I am only asking to share the life of the man I love. What more does a woman want?”
“Not to share such a life as mine,” he replied, bitterly. “Think of it, Betty, darling! For the rest of my days I must sneak about the world under a false name, hiding in obscure places, scanning the face of every stranger with fear and suspicion lest he should discover my secret and drag me from my sham grave. I am an outcast, an Ishmaelite. Every man’s hand is against me. Could I allow a woman—a beautiful girl, a lady of position—to share such a sordid existence as mine? I should be a poor lover if I could think of such contemptible selfishness.”
“It isn’t so bad as that, Jim, dear,” she pleaded. “We could go abroad—to America—and make a fresh start. You would be sure to do well there with your abilities, and we could just shake off the old world and forget it.”
He shook his head, sadly. “It is no use, darling, to delude ourselves. We must face realities. Mine is a wrecked life. It would be a crime, even if it were possible, for me to take you from the surroundings of an English lady and involve you in the wreckage. It was a misfortune, at least for you, that we ever met, and there is only one remedy. When we separate, we must try to forget one another.”
“We shan’t, Jim,” she exclaimed, passionately. “You know we shan’t. We aren’t, either of us, of the kind that forgets. And we could be so happy together! Don’t let us lose everything for a mere scruple.”
At this moment all on deck were startled by a loud hail from aloft. One of the men had climbed up into the swaying foretop and stood there holding on to the topmast shrouds and with his free hand pointing to the north. Osmond stepped forward and hailed him.
“Foretop there! What is it?”
“A steamer, sir. Seems to be headin’ straight on to us.”
Osmond ran below, and having fetched Redford’s binocular from the berth, climbed the main rigging to just below the cross-tree. There, securing himself with one arm passed round a shroud, he scanned the northern horizon intently for a minute or two and then descended slowly with a grave, set face. From his loftier station he had been able to make out the vessel’s hull; and the character of the approaching ship had left him in little doubt as to her mission. His comrade met him with an anxious, inquiring face as he jumped down from the rail.
“Small man-o’-war,” he reported in response to the unspoken question; “barquentine-rigged, buff funnel, white hull. Looks like a gun-boat.”
“Ha!” she exclaimed. “That will be the Widgeon. She was lying off Accra.”
The two looked at one another in silence for a while as they look who have heard bad tidings. At length Osmond said, grimly: “Well, this is the end of it, Betty. She has been sent out to search for you. It will be ‘good-bye’ in less than an hour.”
“Not ‘good-bye,’ Jim,” she urged. “You will come, too, won’t you?”
“No,” he replied; “I can’t leave the old man in this muddle.”
“But you’ll have to leave him sooner or later.”
“Yes; but I must give him the chance to get another mate, or at least to ship one or two native hands.”
“Oh, let him muddle on as he did before. My father will be wild to see you when he hears of all that has happened. Don’t forget, Jim, that you saved my life.”
“I saved my own,” said he, “and you chanced to benefit. But I couldn’t come with you in any case, Betty. You are forgetting that I have to keep out of sight. There may be men up at head-quarters who know me. There may be even on this gun-boat.”
She gazed at him despairingly and her eyes filled. “Oh, Jim,” she moaned, “how dreadful it is. Of course I must go. But I feel that we shall never see one another again.”
“It will be better if we don’t,” said he.
“Oh, don’t say that!” she pleaded. “Think of what we have been to one another and what we could still be for ever and ever if only you could forget what is past and done with. Think of what perfect chums we have been and how fond we are of one another. For we are, Jim. I love you with my whole heart and I know that you are just as devoted to me. It is a tragedy that we should have to part.”
“It is,” he agreed, gloomily, “and the tragedy is of my making.”
“It isn’t,” she dissented, indignantly; and then, softly and coaxingly, she continued: “But we won’t lose sight of each other altogether, Jim, will we? You will write to me as soon as you get ashore. Promise me that you will.”
“Much better not,” he replied; but with so little decision that she persisted until, in the end, and much against his judgment, he yielded and gave the required promise.
“That makes it a little easier,” she said, with a sigh. “It leaves me something to look forward to.”
She took the glasses from him and searched the rim of the horizon, over which the masts of the approaching ship had begun to appear.
“I suppose I ought to report to the old man,” said Osmond, and he was just turning towards the companion when Captain Hartup’s head emerged slowly and was in due course followed by the remainder of his person. His left arm was now emancipated from the sling and in his right hand he carried a sextant.
“Gun-boat in sight, sir,” said Osmond. “Seems to be coming our way.”
The captain nodded, and stepping to the taffrail, applied his eye to the eyepiece of the sextant.
“It has gone seven bells,” said he. “Isn’t it about time you got ready to take the latitude—you and the other officer?” he added, with a sour grin.
In the agitating circumstances, Osmond had nearly forgotten the daily ceremony—a source of perennial joy to the crew. He now ran below and presently returned with the two sextants, one of which he handed to ‘the other officer.’
“For the last time, little comrade,” he whispered.
“And we’ll work the reckoning together. Norie’s Navigation will be a sacred book to me after this.”
She took the instrument from him and advanced with him to the bulwark. But if the truth must be told, her observation was a mere matter of form, and twice before the skipper called “eight bells” she had furtively to wipe a tear from the eyepiece. But she went below to the cuddy and resolutely worked out the latitude (from the reading on Osmond’s