“But will Mr. Henninger—”
“Henninger and the others will never give up a cent of their share; I know that. We mustn’t spoil their plans, I suppose, so we will give them time to get safely clear. Then we will surrender our part of it, and present our bill for expenses, and say nothing about any more having been recovered. The Crown will be glad enough to get any of it back.”
“This is the best news of all!” said Margaret, with a long breath. “A hundred thousand dollars! That will be fabulous wealth to me! I can have all the things, and see all the things, and do all the things that I dreamed of all my life and never expected to realize. Now I believe I’m really glad to be rich again. Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott muttered.
“I think we ought to try to use this money so as to justify having it,” Margaret went on. “It has cost so much misery and so many lives, and I want to spend it so as to make it clean again. I want to make others happy with it, as well as be happy myself. What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott burst out. “I don’t value this money, whether it’s a hundred thousand or a million, not a straw. I’d throw it away; I’d blow it in, like Henninger—God knows what I’ll do with it. There’s only one thing that I really want I told you what it was at that hotel in New York, and you ordered me never to speak of it again. If I can’t have that I don’t care much what becomes of the money, or of anything else.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t speak of that—not now!” murmured Margaret; and as he hesitated she turned quickly away and slipped toward the stern companionway. “You won’t lose by waiting,” was what she left in a semi-audible whisper as she vanished, and Elliott had this to ponder on as he stood watching the heavy swell rolling blackly toward Africa, toward Durban, where the dhow was due in another day.
But it was really two days before she glided up the port and anchored innocently in the bay, looking anything but the treasure-ship she was. And now the most harassing, the most anxious and delicate part of the whole adventure was begun.
Margaret went on to Cape Town at once, with instructions to secure a maid in that city as a travelling companion and to sail direct for London. And in her absence the gold was taken ashore piece-meal, in pockets and travelling-bags and hat-boxes, and little by little exchanged for clean Bank of England notes and shiny sovereigns. Over $150,000 was sold in Durban, and then the party proceeded to Cape Town, where, following the same procedure, nearly twice as much was passed over to the banks for specie.
The rest, Henninger decided, could best be disposed of in America, and he was, besides, anxious to get out of British territory as soon as possible. Accordingly the dhow was dismantled, the crew paid off, the reis given a present of two hundred sovereigns above his salary, and Henninger, Hawke, and Bennett sailed for New York direct, with a mountain of trunks, each containing a few gold blocks packed among unnecessary clothing. And two days afterward Elliott took passage for England with six hundred and forty thousand dollars, being his own and Margaret’s share of the cargo of the Clara McClay.