Billy looked at Johann and thought of those mild blue eyes of his being ordered to look with approval on the sights of this most terrible of wars, thought of his gentle, capable hands being set to the burning and pillaging of stricken Belgium. He shuddered.
“I believed they had bruised my spirit until there was no more life in it,” Johann went on, “but when they came for me tonight, when we passed the point and I saw the lights of Captain Saulsby’s cottage, when I thought of fighting against his country and that of all the friends I loved, why then I could not go. I jumped overboard and swam ashore; this little girl’s brave voice showed me the way; this boy’s quick wit prevented my enemies from following me, and here I am.”
So absorbed had Billy been, that it was not until Sally nudged him, that he observed the last addition to Johann’s group of listeners. Then he saw a little, bedraggled man, hatless and blackened with the charcoal of the fires they had been tending. He did not realize who it was until the men about them parted, leaving the newcomer face to face with Captain Saulsby.
“Harvey Jarreth,” the old sailor said, “are you still trying to pass yourself off as a fit companion for honest men? That friend of yours is out there on the yacht; this boy Johann is too good to go with him, but you are not. You had better join them out there, Harvey; there is nothing left here for you. No one will ever trust or respect you again; you will probably be in jail in another hour if you stay. There are plenty of men here will offer you a boat, just to get rid of you. You had better go to your friends, Harvey.”
Jarreth received the Captain’s words in unprotesting silence. He seemed to be thinking very deeply, and of unhappy things, but when he spoke at last it was with a queer twisted smile.
“I don’t believe I’ll go, Ned,” he answered, “no matter what comes to me here. I am certainly the biggest fool in the United States, and perhaps the biggest rascal; but after all I am in the United States and I think I will stay there. He has gone beyond anything I ever bargained for, that friend of mine; he has made a monkey of me just the way you said, and I am glad to know it at last. Yes, I guess I will stay. I would rather go to jail than to Germany.”
He pulled a roll of papers out of his pocket, turned them over once or twice and then tore them across.
“I always said it was criminal, the way you looked after your affairs, Ned Saulsby,” he went on, “and I had got a clear title to most of your land; these were the proofs.” He tossed the torn papers into the nearest fire where they burst into flame.
“I’d kind of like to go to jail,” he concluded at last, with a tremor in his once arrogant voice. “I believe it would make me feel better about having been such a fool. Tell any one who wants me that I’ll be waiting at my house.”
Without another word he turned in the flickering firelight, and trudged slowly away through the heavy sand.