“Don’t cry, my pretty one, only don’t forget us. You won’t forget Abel, of course; but—I never felt as if I could talk to you like this before—don’t forget as Bart Wrigley was werry fond on you, and that, if he’d been a fine hansum chap, ’stead of such a rough un, with his figure-head all set o’ one side, he’d ha’ stuck up and said as no one else shouldn’t have you.”
“Oh, Bart, Bart!” sobbed Mary, piteously.
“Ay, lass, that he would; but he often says to himself, ‘It wouldn’t be kind to a girl like that to hang on to her.’ So, good-bye, my pretty lady, and I’ll tell Abel as he’s the blind, thick-headed fool if he says it was you as got us into this hole.”
Bart had to wind up his unwontedly long speech very quickly, for a couple of turnkeys had entered the stone-walled room, to conduct the big fellow back to his cell, and show Mary to the outside of the prison.
“Good bye, dear Bart, dear old friend!”
“Good bye, my pretty lady!” cried the big fellow? “You called me ‘dear Bart’ again.”
“Yes, dear Bart, dear brother!” cried Mary, passionately, and, raising his big hand to her lips, she kissed it.
“Bah!” growled Bart to himself, “let ’em hang me. What do I care arter that? ‘Dear Bart—dear Bart!’ I wouldn’t care a bit if I only knowed what she’d do when we’re gone.”
Then the time glided on, and Mary heard from one and another the popular belief that the authorities, rejoicing in having at last caught two notorious smugglers and wreckers red-handed in a serious offence, were determined to make an example by punishing them with the utmost rigour of the law.
The poor girl in her loneliness had racked her brains for means of helping her brother. She had sold everything of value they possessed to pay for legal assistance, and she had, with fertile imagination, plotted means for helping Abel to escape; but even if her plans had been possible, they had been crossed by her brother’s obstinate disbelief in her truth. His last message was one which sent her to the cottage flushed and angry, for it was a cruel repetition of his old accusation, joined with a declaration that he disbelieved in her in other ways, and that this had been done in collusion with Captain Armstrong to get him and Bart out of her way.