"You compel me to abandon the fondest hope I have cherished? Be it so. Now to undo this business, and forget my folly."
Turning about, he calls to the boatswain to have his barge manned and brought to the ship's landing-steps.
"I must ask you, madam," says he, again addressing my lady, "to leave this ship. I must think now only of my own safety and the welfare of my company."
Not foreseeing her danger, but only transported with joy to think she was to be delivered from her captivity, Lady Biddy replied that she demanded nothing better.
"Your effects will be landed afterwards. I doubt if you would care for me to send my men into your cabin for them at the present moment."
"But," says Lady Biddy, thinking of me, and then she stopped.
"I understand what is in your thoughts. You are concerned for your friend; so am I. I cannot answer for his life if my men find him. They would insist upon his death in return for the injury inflicted upon Tonga. Therefore must he wait until the company is landed and gone in search of water."
At this moment the boatswain came to say that the boat was prepared.
"You will take this lady to the shore, and see that no injury is offered her—not a word uttered that may offend her," says Rodrigues; and then stepping back, that she might have freedom to pass, he takes off his hat and makes her a prodigious fine bow. Yet Lady Biddy hesitated, fearing treachery to me; and still more might she have feared it if her spirits had been quite composed, and her judgment in a condition to weigh all that Rodrigues had said.
"What have you to fear?" says he, speaking low. "What harm could the most treacherous wretch inflict with impunity? If you have told the truth—which I do not doubt—a cry from you will insure the destruction of all you leave in this ship. Your cry from the shore would sound as clearly in this still air as from here. Think what you will of me, but believe that I am not a fool. Farewell!"