“And Miss Fairfax?” Howard almost choked as he uttered the words, but the necessity of dissembling was strong upon him.
“Miss Fairfax will go with us—as my wife!”
“What!”
“Sit down, Howard, and keep your shirt on. What’s the use of getting worked up. I know I’m not exactly in Miss Fairfax’s line, but she won’t be the only woman who has married out of her class. I’ll make good with her father, all right.”
“You think you can get Miss Fairfax to marry you?”
In spite of himself the scorn that Howard tried to hide showed in his voice. Forbes did not notice it.
“She can’t help herself,” he declared. “I’ve got her dead to rights. Besides, I’ve got the law—our law—on my side. You don’t suppose ordinary rules govern here, do you? Not much! The sexes are too frightfully disproportionate. Counting your party, there are just twenty-four men and only three women here. The coming of a new woman has always been the signal for trouble. Bad blood, quarrels, and murders have followed inevitably. So we made a law some years ago that every woman must marry within twenty-four hours after her arrival. Under that law I intend to marry Miss Fairfax. What have you to say about it?”
With the last word Captain Forbes put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, staring into Howard’s face. Huge, shaggy, and evidently immensely powerful, he towered menacingly above the smaller naval officer.
Howard wanted to say a good deal, but forbore. Clearly Forbes took him for an ordinary scoundrel who had his price like other scoundrels. If he was to help Dorothy, the obvious thing was to appear to fall in with the plan until opportunity offered to defeat it, or until action could no longer be deferred. That is, he must gain time, and the only way to gain time was to dissimulate.
“I don’t believe I have anything to say about it just now, captain,” he returned, mildly, “except that I think you could make a better bargain with Colonel Fairfax if you merely returned his daughter to him safely. She’ll hate you forever, you know.”