“I’m glad to hear you say that, Tommy,” replied I; “but the doctor says you must remain very quiet, and therefore I shall leave you. Good-bye; I will see you again this evening.”
“Good-bye, sir, and I hope you’ll forgive me for not having been so respectful as I should have been.”
“Yes, yes, Tommy; we have been friends too long for that.”
Mammy Crissobella’s dose had certainly put an end to all Tommy’s spirit of resistance. All the others who had been victims to our plot were kept in the dark as to the real facts, and, as soon as they were able to be moved, paid their bills to Leila, and left the house.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
On the third day, Tommy Dott and Mr Maxwell went on board, imagining that they had had a miraculous escape, and the two old planters and I were left the only inmates of the house to welcome the resurrection of Mammy Crissobella, who was again as busy as before. She said to me, “Massy Keene, I really under great obligation to you; suppose you want two, three hundred, five hundred pounds, very much at your service; never mind pay back.”
I replied that I did not want any money, and was equally obliged to her. But the affair had already made a great noise. It was at first really supposed that Mammy Crissobella had poisoned them as well as herself, and I was obliged to refute it, or the authorities would have taken it up. As the admiral sent down to make inquiries, I went up to him and told him the whole story; I was obliged to do the same to the governor, and it was the occasion of great mirth all over the island, and no small mortification to those who had been the sufferers. Mammy Crissobella was complimented very much upon her successful stratagem to clear her house, and she was quite in ecstasies at the renown that she obtained.
One day the admiral sent for me, and said—“Keene, I can wait no longer the arrival of another vessel. I must send you to England with despatches: you must sail to-morrow morning.”