Moran laid an arm across his shoulder, and the two walked aft. For half an hour Wilbur talked to her earnestly about his new idea of filibustering; and as he told her of the war he warmed to the subject, his face glowing, his eyes sparkling. Suddenly, however, he broke off.
“But no!” he exclaimed. “You don't understand, Moran. How can you—you're foreign-born. It's no affair of yours!”
“Mate! mate!” cried Moran, her hands upon his shoulders. “It's you who don't understand—don't understand me. Don't you know—can't you see? Your people are mine now. I'm happy only in your happiness. You were right—the best happiness is the happiness one shares. And your sorrows belong to me, just as I belong to you, dear. Your enemies are mine, and your quarrels are my quarrels.” She drew his head quickly toward her and kissed him.
In the morning the two had made up their minds to a certain vague course of action. To get away—anywhere—was their one aim. Moran was by nature a creature unfit for civilization, and the love of adventure and the desire for action had suddenly leaped to life in Wilbur's blood and was not to be resisted. They would get up to San Francisco, dispose of their “loot,” outfit the “Bertha Millner” as a filibuster, and put to sea again. They had discussed the advisability of rounding the Horn in so small a ship as the “Bertha Millner,” but Moran had settled that at once.
“I've got to know her pretty well,” she told Wilbur. “She's sound as a nut. Only let's get away from this place.”
But toward ten o'clock on the morning after their arrival off Coronado, and just as they were preparing to get under way, Hoang touched Wilbur's elbow.
“Seeum lil one-piece smoke-boat; him come chop-chop.”
In fact, a little steam-launch was rapidly approaching the schooner. In another instant she was alongside. Jerry, Nat Ridgeway, Josie Herrick, and an elderly woman, whom Wilbur barely knew as Miss Herrick's married sister, were aboard.
“We've come off to see your yacht!” cried Miss Herrick to Wilbur as the launch bumped along the schooner's counter. “Can we come aboard?” She looked very pretty in her crisp pink shirt-waist her white duck skirt, and white kid shoes, her sailor hat tilted at a barely perceptible angle. The men were in white flannels and smart yachting suits. “Can we come aboard?” she repeated.
Wilbur gasped and stared. “Good Lord!” he muttered. “Oh, come along,” he added, desperately.