He stopped for a few moments and Lister began to feel some sympathy. The man was desperate and had obviously borne much.
"My staying at the factory was a strain," Montgomery continued. "I was ill and when at length I saw you might succeed, the suspense was horrible. You see, I risked the honor of the house, my marriage, my fortune. All I had and cared about!"
"Were you to be married?" Lister asked.
Montgomery signed agreement. "The wedding was put off. While it looked as if my mended fortune was built on fraud and I had known, and agreed to, the trick, I could not marry a high-principled girl."
Brown knitted his brows and was quiet for some moments. Then he said, "You are now willing to get us the boys we want and help us where you can?"
"That is so," Montgomery agreed.
"Very well!" said Brown. "We expect to open the lazaret at daybreak and you can come with us. You had better send off your boat and stop on board."
[CHAPTER X]
[BARBARA TAKES CONTROL]
The sun was rising and the mist rolled back from the lagoon. The tide was low and Arcturus' rusty side rose high above the smooth green water. Damp weed hung from the beams in her poop cabin and a dull light came down through the broken glass. A sailor, kneeling on the slimy planks, tried to force a corroded ring-bolt from its niche; another trimmed a smoky lantern. Lister, Brown and Montgomery waited. In the half-light, their faces looked gray and worn. The sun had given them a dull pallor, and on the West African coast nobody sleeps much.