“Then I will always be grateful to you, and pray for your happiness.”
“And be mine, Mary, my love, my own?”
“You villain! you traitor!” hissed Mary, as, taking advantage of a momentary forgetfulness, he clasped her in his arms and showered kisses on her lips, her cheeks, her hair.
But Captain Armstrong had made a mistake. It was like caressing a Cornish wrestler. There was a sharp struggle, during which he found that Mary’s thews and sinews were, softly rounded as she was, strong as those of a man. She had been accustomed to row a boat in a rough sea by the hour together, and there was additional strength given to her arm by the indignation that made her blood course hotly through her veins.
How dare he, a miserable traitor, insult her as he did?
The question made the girl’s blood seem to boil; and ere he could place another kiss upon her lips Mary had forgotten brother, friend, the trial everything but the fact that James Armstrong, Mistress Armstrong’s husband, had clasped her in his arms; and in return she clasped him tightly in hers.
They swayed here for a moment, then there, and the next the captain was lifted completely from the shingle and literally jerked sideways, to fall with a crash and strike his head against a piece of rock. Then a sickening sensation came over him and all seemed dark, while, when he recovered a few minutes later, his head was bleeding and he was alone, and afraid with his swimming head to clamber up the rough cliff path.
“The cursed jade!” he muttered, as he recovered after a time, and went cautiously back after tying up his head, “I wish I could lay her alongside her brother in the gaol.”
“Yes; I’ll save him,” he said with a mocking laugh, as he reached the top of the cliff and looked down at the faint light seen in the old wrecker’s cottage. “I’ll save him; and, in spite of all, it’ll be a strange thing if Mary Dell isn’t lost.
“Curse her, how strong she is!” he said after a pause.