“What? Don't laugh at me, sir, for it's no laughing matter. I drank that night naught worse, I expect, than red wine. Whatever it was, we swore our oaths, Mr. Cary; and oaths are oaths, say I.”
“Of course, Jack, of course; but to go to look for her—and when we've found her, cut her lover's throat. Absurd, Jack, even if she were worth looking for, or his throat worth cutting. Tut, tut, tut—”
But Jack looked steadfastly in his face, and after some silence:
How far is it to the Caracas, then, sir?”
“What is that to thee, man?”
“Why, he was made governor thereof, I hear; so that would be the place to find her?”
“You don't mean to go thither to seek her?” shouted Cary, forcing a laugh.
“That depends on whether I can go, sir; but if I can scrape the money together, or get a berth on board some ship, why, God's will must be done.”
Will looked at him, to see if he had been drinking, or gone mad; but the little pigs' eyes were both sane and sober.
Will knew no answer. To laugh at the poor fellow was easy enough; to deny that he was right, that he was a hero and cavalier, outdoing romance itself in faithfulness, not so easy; and Cary, in the first impulse, wished him at the bottom of the bay for shaming him. Of course, his own plan of letting ill alone was the rational, prudent, irreproachable plan, and just what any gentleman in his senses would have done; but here was a vulgar, fat curate, out of his senses, determined not to let ill alone, but to do something, as Cary felt in his heart, of a far diviner stamp.