uniform—reached the top of the ladder, he exchanged salutes with the skipper and the lady, who advanced and held out her hand.
“Well, Miss Burleigh,” said the lieutenant as he shook her hand, heartily, “this is a relief to find you safe and sound and looking in the very pink of health. But you have given us all a rare fright. We were afraid the ship had been lost.”
“So she was,” replied Betty. “Lost and found. I think I have earned a fatted calf, don’t you, Captain Darley?”
“I don’t know,” rejoined the lieutenant (the honorary rank was in acknowledgment of his position as commander of the gun-boat); “we must leave that to His Excellency. But it doesn’t sound very complimentary to your shipmates or to your recent diet. I needn’t ask if you are coming back with us. My cabin has been made ready for you.”
“But how kind of you, Captain Darley. Yes, I suppose I must come with you, though I have been having quite a good time here; mutinies, fishing, and all sorts of entertainments.”
“Mutinies, hey!” exclaimed Darley, with a quick glance at the captain. “Well, I am sorry to tear you away from these entertainments, but orders are orders. Perhaps you will get your traps packed up while I have a few words with the captain. I shall have to make a report of what has happened.”
On this there was a general move towards the companion. Betty retired—somewhat precipitately—to her berth and the lieutenant followed Captain Hartup to his cabin.
Both parties were absent for some time. The first to reappear was Betty, slightly red about the eyes and carrying a small handbag. Having dispatched Sam Winter below to fetch up her portmanteau, she drew Osmond away to the starboard side.
“Jack,” she said, in a low, earnest tone—“I may call you by your own name just for once, mayn’t I?—you have made me a promise. You won’t go back on it, will you, Jack?”
“Of course I shan’t, Betty,” he replied.
“I want you to have my cabin when I’ve gone,” she continued. “It is a better one than yours and it has a tiny port-hole. And if you open the locker, you will find a little note for you. That is all. Here they come. Good-bye, Jack, darling!”
She turned away abruptly as he murmured a husky farewell, and having shaken hands with Captain Hartup and thanked him for his hospitality, was stepping on to the ladder when she paused suddenly and turned back.
“I had nearly forgotten,” said she. “I haven’t paid my passage.”
“There is no passage-money to pay,” the skipper said, gruffly. “My contract was to deliver you at Accra, and I haven’t done it. Besides,” he added, with a sour grin, “you’ve worked your passage.”
“Worked her passage!” exclaimed the lieutenant. What do you mean?”
“She has been taking the second mate’s duties,” the skipper explained.
Darley stared open-mouthed from the skipper to the lady. Then, with a fine, hearty British guffaw, he assisted the latter down to the boat.
CHAPTER VII
The Mate Takes His Discharge
As an instance of the malicious perversity which the forces of nature often appear to display, the calm which had for so many days cut off Miss Betty from any communication with the world at large seemed unable to survive her departure. Before the gun-boat was fairly hull down on the horizon, a dark line on the glassy sea announced the approach of a breeze, and a few minutes later the brigantine’s sails filled, her wallowings subsided, and a visible wake began to stream out astern.
The change in the vessel’s motion brought the captain promptly on deck, and Osmond listened somewhat anxiously for the orders as to the course which was to be set. But he knew his commander too well to make any suggestions.
“Breeze seems to be about sou’-sou’-west,” the skipper remarked with one eye on the compass-dial and the other on the upper sails. “Looks as if it was going to hold, too. Put her head west-nor’-west.”
“Did the lieutenant give you our position?” Osmond inquired.
“No, he didn’t,” the skipper snapped. “He wasn’t asked. I don’t want any of your brass-bound dandies teaching me my business. The continent of Africa is big enough for me to find without their help.”
Osmond smothered a grin as he thought of the chronometer, re-started and ticking away aimlessly in the captain’s cabin, its error and rate alike unknown. But again he made no comment, and presently the skipper resumed: “I suppose you will be wanting to get back to Adaffia?”
“I’m not going to leave you in the lurch.”
“Well, you can’t stay with me for good excepting as a seaman, as you haven’t got a ticket—at least, I suppose you haven’t.”
“No. I hold a master’s certificate entitling me to navigate my own yacht, but, of course, that is no use on a merchant vessel, excepting in an emergency. But I don’t quite see what you are going to do.”
“It is a bit of a problem,” the skipper admitted. “I shall take on one or two native hands to help while we are on the Coast, and appoint Winter and Simmons to act as mates. Then perhaps I shall he able to pick up an officer from one of the steamers for the homeward trip.”
“I will stay with you until you are fixed up, if you like,” said Osmond; but the captain shook his head.
“No,” he replied. “I shall put you ashore at Adaffia. I can manage all right on the Coast, and I must have a regular mate for the homeward voyage.”
Thus the programme was settled, and, on the whole, satisfactorily to Osmond. It is true that, if there had been no such person as Elizabeth Burleigh, he would have held on to his position, even with the rating of ordinary seaman, for the homeward voyage, on the chance of transferring later to some ship bound for South America or the Pacific Islands. But although he had renounced all claim to her and all hope of any future connected with her, he still clung to the ill omened land that was made glorious to him by her beloved presence.
The captain’s forecast was justified by the event. The breeze held steadily and seemed inclined to freshen rather than to fail. The old brigantine heeled over gently and forged ahead with a pleasant murmur in her sails and quite a fine wake trailing astern. It was a great relief to everybody after the long calm, with its monotony and inaction and the incessant rolling of the ship and flapping of the sails. The captain was almost pleasant and the crew were cheerful and contented, though they had little to do, for when once the course was set there was no need to touch sheet or brace, and the trick at the wheel was the only active duty apart from the cook’s activities.
To Osmond alone the change brought no obvious satisfaction. All that had recently happened had been, as he could not but recognize, for the best. The parting had to come, and every day that it was delayed forged his fetters only the more firmly. But this reflection offered little consolation. He loved this sweet, frank, open-hearted girl with an intensity possible only to a man of his strength of will and constancy of purpose. And now she was gone; gone out of his life for ever. It was a final parting. There was no future to look forward to; not even the most distant and shadowy. The vision of a great happiness had floated before him and had passed, leaving him to take up again the burden of his joyless life, haunted for
