“Ah! but I was an old man; you are young.”
“Young!” said Bayle sadly. “No, I was always her old teacher; and she loves this man.”
“I cannot think it,” cried Sir Gordon, “and what is more, Hallam has outrageous plans of his own—look there.”
There were the sounds of horses’ feet on the newly-made Government road that passed the house Sir Gordon had chosen on account of its leading down on one side to where lay his lugger, in which he spent half his time cruising among the islands, and in fine weather out and along the Pacific shore; on the other side to the eastward of the huge billows that rolled in with their heavy thunderous roar.
As Bayle looked up, he saw Julia in a plain grey riding habit, mounted on a handsome mare, cantering up with a well-dressed, bluff-looking, middle-aged man by her side. He, too, was well mounted, and as Julia checked her mare to walk by Sir Gordon’s cottage, the man drew rein and watched her closely. She bent forward, scanning the windows anxiously, but seeing no one, for the occupants of the room were by the fire as they passed on, and Bayle turned to Sir Gordon with an angry look in his eyes.
“Oh no! Impossible!” he exclaimed.
“There’s nothing impossible out here in this horrible penal place,” cried Sir Gordon, in a voice full of agitation.
“No,” said Bayle, whose face cleared, and he smiled; “it is not even impossible that my old friend will go on enjoying his cruises about these glorious shores, and that the mutiny—Shall I call in Tom Porter?”
“Well, yes; I suppose you must,” said Sir Gordon with a grim smile.
Bayle went to the door, and Tom Porter answered the call with an “Ay, ay, sir,” and came padding over the floor with his bare feet like a man-o’-war’s-man on a holy-stoned deck.