At length Talbot opened the state-room door, and, thrusting in his head, said roughly—
“Here, come out of that, mister; you’ve worried poor Dicky quite long enough. If he won’t forgive yer, why, he won’t, and that settles it. You’ve had a fair chance to see what you could do with him, and you’ve failed; we decided to give yer a quarter of a hour, and the time’s up; so out you comes; d’ye hear?”
The next moment Walford was seized by the collar, and was being dragged roughly enough out of the state-room, when Rudd, pretending to relent, called out—
“There, take him away, Ben; but don’t be too hard on him; I forgives him just this once, and I hopes he won’t never do it again.”
Walford, upon hearing these words, which seemed to him a reprieve from the very jaws of death, broke away from Talbot’s grasp, and, rushing back to the side of the berth, seized Rudd’s hand, kissed it wildly, and burst into an uncontrollable passion of tears, in the midst of which he was hustled unceremoniously out on deck.
Chapter Eight.
A Double Tragedy.
A moment or two in the open air sufficed to settle in some measure Walford’s disordered faculties and to restore to him his reason, of which he had been pretty nearly bereft by the terror of the preceding half-hour.