A question ran like a ripple through Pamela’s mind, “What makes Christopher cross to-night?” but the next instant she forgot it. A distant shout, unmistakably uttered by Hawkins, came thinly to them across the water, and in another second or two the noise of oars could be distinctly heard. The sound advanced steadily.
“Show a light there on the pier!” called out a voice that was not Hawkins’.
Cursiter struck a match, a feeble illuminant that made everything around invisible except the faces of the group on the pier, and by the time it had been tossed, like a falling star, into the tarry blackness of the water, the boat was within conversational distance.
“Is Miss Fitzpatrick there?” demanded Lady Dysart.
“She is,” said Lambert’s voice.
“What have you done with the launch?” shouted Cursiter, in a tone that made his subaltern quake.
“She’s all right,” he made haste to reply. “She’s on that mud-shallow off Curragh Point, and Lambert’s man is on board her now. Lambert saw us aground there from his window, and we were at her for an hour trying to get her off, and then it got so dark, we thought we’d better leave her and come on. She’s all right, you know.”
“Oh,” said Captain Cursiter, in, as Hawkins thought to himself, a deuced disagreeable voice.
The boat came up alongside of the pier, and in the hubbub of inquiry that arose, Francie was conscious of a great sense of protection in Lambert’s presence, angry though she knew he was. As he helped her out of the boat, she whispered tremulously:
“It was awfully good of you to come.”