“It is. An almost incredible circumstance. But it’s the way things happen.”
“And you told him nothing?”
“He began telling me things, and I saw it all before I let anything out. Even now I think I could give him all this, and Jakoub, and keep you and Welfare out, but I prefer the other way.”
“You couldn’t muzzle Jakoub once he knew his own game was up. We are compromised utterly. They would bring you in as a witness. They might even arrest you! No, for God’s sake, let’s do it our own way.”
A flash almost of fun came into his eyes.
“Do you know,” he asked, “that we’ll have to steal it from Jakoub and the others?”
“I don’t care a hang about that.”
There was healing in our laugh, and I was filled with a great thankfulness as Edmund went away. I knew that for the time being he was saved from himself. He had at last a clear, clean duty, and an enormously difficult task before him. I could not tell how he would accomplish it; but in the trying there would be reparation. After all he had not sunk so deep as I feared. He had tolerated depravity in order to live the life he desired, but he had not yet actually traded in it.
I was much more hopeful as I dozed through the stifling heat of the afternoon, waiting for Captain Welfare. They came at last about five o’clock. Captain Welfare hesitated, or professed to hesitate, about taking my hand.
“It’s good of you to offer it, sir,” he said. “I hope you’ll believe as I’d never have allowed you to leave us when you did if I’d known such a storm as that were blowing up. It’s the worst I’ve seen, and I’ve seen plenty. When we got sand coming on deck five mile from the land, I knew what it were like ashore. I thought you were lost, sir. I did, indeed. I didn’t think as you would have stood it. Your brother will tell you how I carried on about it.”