“I say, when is pretty little Hester going to reward me for all my patience and perseverance?” he repeated. “No, no! don’t run away, little timidity. I am very dreadful, am I not? I am a terrible fellow to seize upon the ship, and make the scoundrels who tried to rob me work for my treasure. What—no answer?”
Hester could not have spoken had she wished, for her position seemed to paralyse her. An indignant word might cause the wretch who persecuted her to endanger once more her husband’s life, and so she crouched there trembling.
The doctor and Captain Studwick were at the pumps, but she dare not appeal to them lest more mischief should befall, and hence she sat there trembling, feeling how thoroughly they were in the monster’s power.
“She is coy and angry at our neglect,” said Lauré, sneeringly. “Well, well, we must excuse it, for we have been too busy even to think of love. Let us apologise, then, and say that we love her more than ever; and now that the work is nearly done, we are going to seek our reward henceforward here, Hester.”
He laid his hand once more upon her arm, but she shrunk shuddering away, and the Cuban walked angrily to the side, where, with the tube in his hand, he stood gazing down, and watching the action of Dutch as he moved from place to place far below in the pure water.
He glanced round once, and saw that Hester, with dilated eyes, was watching his every movement, and feeling that he had, as it were, her heart-strings in his hand, he pretended to ignore her presence on the other side of the deck, and played with the tube that was the life of Dutch Pugh, now pinching it or bending it so that the supply of air was slightly hindered, when Rasp, unobserved, signalled to those at the air-pump with one hand, causing them to accelerate their toil and so keep up the supply.
Just then, though so weak that he could hardly walk, John Studwick crossed the deck. Bessy would have accompanied him, but he hoarsely told her to keep back, and so soft and slow was his step that he had his thin white hand upon the Cuban’s arm before the latter was aware of his presence.
“You cowardly cur!” said John Studwick, glaring at him with his unnaturally bright eyes, and with his hollow cheeks burning with a hectic flush. “I can hardly think it possible that God can let such a villain live.”
Lauré started as if he had been stung, and his hand sought one of the pistols in his belt.
“Pistols, yes,” said John Studwick. “But pistols or no pistols, if I had the strength of a man instead of being a helpless wreck, one of us should not leave this deck alive.”