“So it was all a plot, eh?” said Code dejectedly. “I give you credit, Burns, for more brains than I ever supposed you had. What’s become of Pete Ellinwood and the Lass?”
“Pete is back on the schooner and she’s gone out to fish. You needn’t worry about them. At the proper time they’ll be told you are safe and unhurt.”
Code said nothing for a while. With hands 183 rammed into his pockets he stood watching the white and blue sea whirl by. In those few minutes he touched the last depth of failure and despair. For a brief space he was minded to leap overboard.
He shivered as one with an ague and shook off the deadly influence of the idea. Had he no more grit? he asked himself. Had he come this far only to be beaten? Was this insolent young popinjay to win at last? No! Then he listened, for Nat was speaking.
“If you give your word of honor not to try and escape you can have the run of the decks and go anywhere you like on the schooner. If not, you will be locked up and go home a prisoner.”
It was the last straw, the final piece of humiliation. Code stiffened as a soldier might to rebuke. A deadly, dull anger surged within him and took possession of his whole being––such an anger as can only come to one who, amiable and upright by nature, is driven to inevitable revolt.
“Look here, Burns,” he said, his voice low, but intense with the emotion that mastered him, “I’ll give no word of honor regarding anything. Between you and me there is a lot to be settled. You have almost ruined me, and, by Heaven, before I get through with you, you’ll rue it!
“I shall make every attempt to escape from this schooner, and if I do escape, look out! If I do not 184 escape and you press these charges against me, I’ll hunt you down for the rest of my life; or if I go to prison I will have others do it for me.
“Now you know what to expect, and you also know that when I say a thing I mean it. Now do what you like with me.”
Burns looked at Schofield’s tense white face. His eyes encountered those flaming blue ones and dropped sullenly. Whether it was the tremendous force of the threat or whether it was a guilty conscience working, no one but himself knew, but his face grew gradually as pallid as that of his captive. Suddenly he turned away.