He knew, however, that his captivity would be but temporary; that the captain of his yacht had orders to bring her down to the Isle of Storms, so as to arrive there by the twenty-fifth of November, then only about one week off.
So Hanson bore his penance as well as he could under the circumstances, looking forward to the time when his white-winged sea swan should be seen off the isle, and he should go on board and sail away—not, indeed, to the Orient, with the beautiful Roma Fronde as his bride, but to Washington, to claim her as his wife, and to demand her surrender by the friends who might have her under their protection; for he was firmly determined to resist to the extremity all attempts that might be made to have the fraudulent marriage set aside.
His sanguine temperament enabled him not only to hope for but to confide in the certainty of ultimate success.
He had legally married her against all the odds of fate and fortune, he told himself. Why, then, should he not hold her as his wife, in spite of her friends, her lawyers, and herself?
He made up his mind, and persuaded himself that he could have her, and would have her, and assuredly should have her. And then, like the Sybarite that he was, he resolved to make the best of his situation on the isle for the week or ten days he might have to remain there, and instead of moping and repining, to “eat, drink, and be merry.”
He was not an ill-tempered man, except on the rare occasions when he came under the influence of wine, very little of which sufficed to dethrone his reason and excite him to violence and vindictiveness. He never was even irritable, except when recovering from such excesses. At other times his manner, at least, was amiable.
As Roma Fronde had said of him, he was not a Moloch, but a Belial; not a lion, but a serpent.
After that first and only outbreak of fury on the day of Roma’s departure, he never again threatened or frightened the two poor old negroes, who were now his only companions, as well as his only attendants. He contented himself with keeping them pretty busy waiting on him, and amused himself with jesting and jeering at them, and playing practical jokes at their expense, a course which made the poor creatures’ lives for the time being a burden to them.
“It’s fo’ our sins, ’Rusalem, honey! It’s fo’ our sins as we is ’libered ober to be tormented fo’ a season by de han’s ob de ebil one,” Wilet was accustomed to say.
“Dat’s so, chile—dat’s yeally so—but ef de Lor’ on’y spar’s my libe ’til dis young man go ’way f’om yere, I’ll try fo’ to be a better nigger, I will,” Jerusalem would answer; and once he added, with emphasis, “Yes, indeed, I will, fo’ sho.”