“Nothing more at present than a few minutes’ privacy and freedom from espionage,” I answered. “Listen, Miss Onslow,” I continued, “I have been engaged for the last two hours in quietly observing the manoeuvres of O’Gorman, and I have come to the conclusion that he intends to close with and speak the barque that has been in sight all the afternoon. Now, such a proceeding may, or may not, be to our advantage. If I can succeed in effecting communication with her skipper, it may be possible for us to accomplish one of three things: First, we may, with the assistance of the barque’s crew, be enabled to effect our escape from these people altogether. Or, if that should prove impracticable, we may possibly be enabled to secure your transfer to the barque. Or, if that attempt also should fail, we surely ought to be able, with the help of the barque’s people, to communicate with the authorities ashore, and claim from them rescue from our present precarious and exceedingly unpleasant situation.”
“Y–e–es,” my companion assented meditatively. Then, after a slight pause, she asked:
“Have you ever thought of what the end of this adventure is likely to be, so far as we two are concerned, supposing that we should fail to effect our escape from O’Gorman and his companions?”
“Certainly, the matter is never absent from my thoughts,” I answered. “We are bound—upon what I cannot help thinking a fool’s errand—to some island in the Pacific, upon which O’Gorman and his party expect to find a certain treasure. This treasure they either will or will not find; but in either case I anticipate that, so far as we are concerned, the adventure will end in our being landed somewhere at a sufficient distance from a town to permit of O’Gorman getting clear away with the brig before we should have time to give the alarm and secure his capture.”
“That, of course, is assuming that you carry out these men’s wishes, without giving them any trouble,” commented Miss Onslow. “But,” she continued, “what, do you imagine, is likely to be the result—the effect upon us both—if you cause them trouble and anxiety by endeavouring to escape? They have made it perfectly evident to you that they cannot dispense with your services. Do you really think it worth our while to irritate and provoke them by attempting to escape? True, they are exceedingly unpleasant people to be brought into such close and constant contact with, but there seems to be no great harm in them, provided that they are allowed to have their own way.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed, “you evidently do not know of what a ship’s crew may become capable when once they have committed so serious a crime as piracy—for that is what they have done in taking this brig from me. It is not what these men are, now, but what they may become in the future, of which I am thinking, especially so far as you are concerned. I recognise possibilities in the future that may make this brig the scene of hourly peril to you of a nature that I shudder to think of, and it is your safety that I am concerned about; that assured, I could face the rest with equanimity.”
“Thank you. It is exceedingly good and kind of you to think so much for me, and so little for yourself,” answered my companion. She spoke with her face turned away from me, so that I was unable to read its expression, and her voice had an intonation that I would have given much to have been able to translate. Was it merely my imagination—I asked myself—or was there really a recurrent shade of her former hauteur of manner, mingled with just the faintest suggestion of irony and impatience? The fact is that I was at that moment as far from being able to comprehend this lovely but inscrutable woman as when I met her for the first time in the saloon of the City of Cawnpore: her moods were as changeable as the weather: there were occasions when her manner toward me was almost as warm and genial and sympathetic as even a lover could require; while there were others when she appeared animated by a set purpose to impress upon me the conviction that our remarkable adventure together invested me with no claim whatever upon her beyond that of the merest ordinary gratitude. As for me, if I have not already allowed the fact to leak out, I may as well here make a clean breast of it and confess that I loved her with all the ardent passion of which a man’s heart is capable, and I was resolutely determined to win her love in return; but up to the moment of which I am now speaking I seemed to have made so little headway that I often doubted whether I had made any at all. I had, however, come at length to recognise that the rebuffs I occasionally met with followed some speech or action of mine of which the young lady did not wholly approve; and so I soon found it to be in the present instance. She remained silent for perhaps half a minute after speaking the words the recounting of which has extorted from me the above explanation, and then continued, with much greater cordiality:
“Believe me, Mr Conyers, I am sincerely grateful to you for your perfectly evident anxiety on my account; but I am obliged to confess that I do not regard our situation as nearly so desperate as you seem to do; I do not think that either of us will have anything to fear from O’Gorman and his companions if you will but reconcile yourself to the performance of the task that they have imposed upon you. What I do really fear is what may happen if you wilfully exasperate them by making any attempt to thwart their plans by depriving them of your assistance—without which, I would remind you again, they can do nothing. Help them to carry through their undertaking—never mind whether or not it be a fool’s errand—and I have every confidence that they will treat us with the utmost consideration, after their own rough fashion; but seriously provoke them, and, I ask you, what are likely to be the consequences to us both? Of course if you can so contrive it that we can both be rescued by the ship in sight, I shall be more delighted than I can say; but as to your attempting to get me transferred to her alone—you will think it strange, unaccountable, perhaps, but I feel so very much more safe here, with you to protect me, than I should on board the strange ship, alone, that if you are to remain here I would very much rather remain with you.”
Words calculated to send the blood of an ardent lover throbbing through his veins like quicksilver, are they not? Yet they excited not one atom of jubilation in me, for they were uttered in a tone of such coldness and indifference that I felt as certain as I could be of anything that it was wholly of herself, and not at all of me, that the speaker was thinking.
“Very well,” I answered, steeling myself to the adoption of an equally cold manner of speech; “I think I understand your wishes in this matter, and will endeavour to carry them out; if the strangers yonder can be induced to take us both out of the hands of these ruffians, well and good; if not, I am to take no other steps?”