"I positively refuse to do that," he said. "I will not think about it, or say one word about it. I will not even refer to any future settlement of that question. The plan I present rests entirely upon my non-return."
"But if you do return?" persisted Edna.
The captain smiled and shook his head. "You must excuse me," he said, "but I can say nothing about that."
She looked steadily at him for a few moments, and then she said: "Very well, we will say nothing about it. As to the plan which has been devised to give us, in case of accident to you, a sound claim to the treasure which has been found here, and to a part of which I consider I have a right, I consent to it. I do this believing that I should share in the wonderful treasures in that cave. I have formed prospects for my future which would make my life a thousand times better worth living than I ever supposed it would be, and I do not wish to interfere with those prospects. I want them to become realities. Therefore, I consent to your proposition, and I will marry you upon a business basis, before you leave."
"Your hand upon it," said the captain; and she gave him a hand so cold that it chilled his own. "Now I will go talk to Maka and Cheditafa," he said. "Of course, we understand that it may be of no advantage to have this coal-black heathen act as officiating clergyman, but it can do no harm, and we must take the chances. I have a good deal to do, and no time to lose if I am to get away on the flood-tide this afternoon. Will it suit you if I get everything ready to start, and we then have the ceremony?"
"Oh, certainly," replied Edna. "Any spare moment will suit me."
When he had gone, Edna Markham sat down on the rock again. With her hands clasped in her lap, she gazed at the sand at her feet.
"Without a minute to think of it," she said to herself, presently,—"without any consideration at all. And now it is done! It was not like me. I do not know myself. But yes!" she exclaimed, speaking so that any one near might have heard her, "I do know myself. I said it because I was afraid, if I did not say it then, I should never be able to say it."
If Captain Horn could have seen her then, a misty light, which no man can mistake, shining in her eyes as she gazed out over everything into nothing, he might not have been able to confine his proposition to a strictly business basis.
She sat a little longer, and then she hurried away to finish the work on which she had been engaged; but when Mrs. Cliff came to look for her, she did not find her packing provisions for the captain's cruise, but sitting alone in one of the inner caves.