Glyddyr gave the orders to unmoor and make sail, after a great deal of hesitation, and then countermanded those orders, and went down into his cabin. There he made the man who acted as steward and valet open for him a pint of champagne, which he tossed off as if suffering from a burning thirst.
That seemed to do him good. His hand ceased to shake, and the peculiar sensation of sinking passed off for the time as he sat by the cabin window, lit a cigar, and let it out again while he watched the Fort, with its drawn-down blinds, and thought over the last night’s proceedings.
“It was an accident,” he said to himself, “a terrible mistake, and all in vain. Good heavens! who could have thought that a little drop of clear white-looking stuff could have done that; and him so used to taking it.”
He shrank away from the window, dashed away his cigar and sat down there in the cabin, with his face buried in his hands.
“I ought to have summoned help when I saw how strange and cold he turned. It would have saved him, poor old fellow! I wouldn’t for all the world that it should have happened, it seems impossible, and I can’t even believe it yet.”
With a start of childish disbelief, he straightened himself and looked out of the cabin window, as if he had half-expected to see the blinds drawn up, and the Fort looking as usual.
But there was no change, and, with a groan of agony, he turned away and stamped his foot with impatient rage.
“Just like my cursed luck,” he cried. “Any one but me would have made a pot of money over Simoom. I could have made enough to free me from this wretched bondage, but now it’s just as if something always stood between me and success, and baulked all my plans.”
He let his head sink upon his hands, and sat thinking again, but only to raise himself in an angry fashion and ring the bell.
“You ring, sir?” said the steward at the end of a minute.