“Some of the English aboard the ketch will join me. Get them. Set a course for the north. Tell Phelim not to fire the guns——”
“And yonder ketch?”
“Leave her here—for Vanderberg.” Crawford uttered a wild, swift laugh. “’Twas he and you gave the Star into my hands. Then I was a homeless, destitute wanderer, an escaped felon; now I’ve a stout ship, a heavy lading, true friends to aid, and the Star of Dreams to lead into the north—into the north, over the horizon—always over the horizon! Ay, after all——”
“After all?” prompted Frontin, as the words failed weakly.
“After all, Vanderberg made only one mistake—he—he opposed the—destiny of—the Star of—Dreams——”
Crawford’s head drooped, and he pitched forward off the thwart, senseless. But Frontin, rapidly working the oar, glanced down at the reddening body with a thin smile.
“Nay, nay!” he murmured. “That talk will do for fools, but not for me. Where poor Vanderberg made his mistake, was in opposing the destiny of Harry Crawford! En avant—the Star goes north, and I follow it. Immortality awaits us; whether we gain immortality by pike-thrust, bullet, or frost, what matter?”
He shrugged a little, then dropped his oar and deftly caught the line flung to him by Sir Phelim Burke of Murtha.
Ten minutes afterward, the bark was standing out of the cove toward the ice blink on the north horizon.