“I suppose I may as well go there as anywhere else. I shall be a marked man all my life, anyhow. What does it matter where I go?”
“Ah, you are down on your luck now; by-and-by you will cheer up again.”
Just then they met a fisherman, who gazed at them, wondering what the two gentlemen were doing out walking at that hour; but concluding that, after the mad fashion of Englishmen, they had been to bathe, he passed them with a civil “Bonjour.” Ernest coloured to the eyes under the scrutiny; he was beginning to feel the dreadful burden of his secret. Presently they reached the steamer, and found Mr. Alston’s little boy Roger, who, though he was only nine years old, was as quick and self-reliant as many English lads of fourteen, waiting for them by the bridge.
“O, here you are, father; you have been walking so long that I thought you would miss the boat. I have brought the luggage down all right, and this gentleman’s too.”
“That’s right, my lad. Kershaw, do you go and take the tickets; I want to get rid of this;” and he tapped the revolver-case, that was concealed beneath his coat.
Ernest did so, and presently met Mr. Alston on the boat. A few minutes more and, to his intense relief, she cast off and stood out to sea. There were not very many passengers on board, and those there were, were too much taken up in making preparations to be sea-sick to take any notice of Ernest. And yet he could not shake himself free from the idea that everybody knew that he had just killed a man. His own self-consciousness was so intense that he saw his guilt reflected on the faces of all he met. He gazed around him in awe, expecting every moment to be greeted as a murderer. Most people who have ever done anything they should not are acquainted with this sensation. Overcome with this idea, he took refuge in his berth, nor did he emerge therefrom till the boat reached Weymouth. There both he and Mr. Alston bought some rough clothes, and, to a great extent, succeeded in disguising themselves; then made their way across country to Southampton in the same trains, but in separate compartments. Reaching Southampton without let or hindrance, they agreed to take passages in the Union Company’s R.M.S. Moor, sailing on the following morning. Mr. Alston obtained a list of the passengers; fortunately, there was nobody among them whom he knew. For greater security, however, they took steerage passages, and booked themselves under assumed names. Ernest took his second Christian name, and figured on the passenger list as E. Beyton, while Mr. Alston and his boy assumed the name of James. They took their passages at different times, and feigned to be unknown to each other. These precautions they found to be doubly necessary, inasmuch as at Southampton Mr. Alston managed to get hold of a book on English criminal law, from which it appeared that the fact of the duel having been fought at Guernsey did not in the least clear them from the legal consequences of the act, as they had vaguely supposed would be the case, on the insufficient authority of Captain Justice’s statement.
At last the vessel sailed, and it was with a sigh of relief that Ernest saw his native shores fade from view. As they disappeared, a fellow-passenger, valet to a gentleman going to the Cape for his health, politely offered him a paper to read. It was the Standard of that day’s date. He took it and glanced at the foreign intelligence. The first thing that caught his eye was the following paragraph, headed “A Fatal Duel”:
“The town of St. Peter’s in Guernsey has been thrown into a state of consternation by the discovery of the body of an English gentleman, who was this morning shot dead in a duel. Captain Justice, of the —— Hussars, who was the unfortunate gentleman’s second, has surrendered himself to the authorities. The other parties, who are at present unknown, have absconded. It is said that they have been traced to Weymouth; but there all trace of them has been lost. The cause of the duel is unknown, and in the present state of excitement it is difficult to obtain authentic information.”
By the pilot who left the vessel Ernest despatched two letters, one to Eva Ceswick, and the other—which contained a copy of the memoranda drawn up before and after the duel, and attested by Mr. Alston—to his uncle. To both he told the story of his misfortune, fully and fairly, imploring the former not to forget him and to wait for happier times, and asking the forgiveness of the latter for the trouble that he had brought upon himself and all belonging to him. Should they wish to write to him, he gave his address as Ernest Beyton, Post-office, Maritzburg.
The pilot-boat hoisted her brown sail with a huge white P. upon it and vanished into the night; and Ernest, feeling that he was a ruined man, and with the stain of blood upon his hands, crept to his bunk and wept like a child.