Another thought, piercing him, brought him up standing with clenched fists.
“If the captain ever gets hold of that idea, what then? If he ever does—what then?”
Brooding he paced up and down the room, limping painfully, for without his cane he could hardly walk even a few steps. And almost at once his fear curdled into hate against the sleek, white-flanneled fellow, sitting there under the elm, calmly translating words that might mean agony and death to the old grandsire.
Filhiol’s mind became confused. He knew not what to think, nor yet which way to turn. What events impended? He recalled the way Hal had peered stealthily into the cabin, and how he had then slid back to his seat under the elm. Was Hal plotting some new infamy? What could be done to warn the captain, to make that blindly loyal heart accept the truth and act upon it?
Tentacles of some terrible thing seemed enmeshing both Filhiol and the old captain—some catastrophe, looming black, impossible to thrust aside. But it was not of himself that Filhiol was thinking. Only the image of the captain, trusting, confident, arose before him.
Filhiol set his teeth in a grimace of hate against the figure at work out there under the big elm.
“I’ve probably done my share of evil in this world,” thought he, “but I could wipe it all out with one supremely good action. If I could put an end to you—”
All unconscious, Hal continued at his work. As he wrote, he smiled a little. The smile was sinister and hard.
What thoughts did it reflect?