“That was said like yourself, and I have no fears about you now. You will be anxious—you can't help being anxious, my poor child—about all this; but your uncertainty shall be as short as I can make it. Look out for me, at all events, with the evening breeze. I'll try and catch the land-wind to take me up. If I fly no ensign, Lucy, I am alone; if you see the 'Jack,' it will mean I have company with me. Do you understand me?”
She nodded, but did not speak.
“Now, Lu, I'll just get my traps together, and be off; that light Tramontana wind will last till daybreak, and by that time the sea-breeze will carry me along pleasantly. How I 'd like to have you with me!”
“It is best as it is, Tom,” said she, trying to smile.
“And if all goes wrong,—I mean if all does not go right,—Lucy, I have got a plan, and I am sure Sir Brook won't oppose it. We 'll just pack up, wish the lead and the cobalt and the rest of it a good-bye, and start for the Cape and join father. There's a project after your own heart, girl.”
“Oh, Tom dearest, if we could do that!”
“Think over it till we meet again, and it will at least keep away darker thoughts.”
CHAPTER II. BY THE MINE AT LA VANNA
The mine of Lavanna, on which Sir Brook had placed all his hopes of future fortune, was distant from the town of Cagliari about eighteen miles. It was an old, a very old shaft; Livy had mentioned it, and Pliny, in one of his letters, compares people of sanguine and hopeful temperament with men who believe in the silver ore of Lavanna. There had therefore been a traditionary character of failure attached to the spot, and not impossibly this very circumstance had given it a greater value in Fossbrooke's estimation; for he loved a tough contest with fortune, and his experiences had given him many such.