Captain Weber turned away, passing the sleeve of his coat over his eyes, and so smearing his face with the gore which still flowed from the wound in his forehead, as he slowly left the cabin.
The steward did not come back; but gradually the blood resumed its wonted course, and Isabel’s consciousness returned.
“Where is my father?” she asked. “What has happened?”
“The brig has been attacked by pirates. They are beaten off, and your father is safe.”
“Santa Maria! my arm, how stiff it feels! Ah, now I remember,” she continued, half rising, and a look of honour overspreading her countenance.
“But for your scream,” replied Hughes, “I should have been taken by surprise. The smoke of the gun was in my eyes, blinding me, and so I could not save you from the felon’s blow.”
The wounded arm, with its stained bandages, the kneeling figure, all begrimed with smoke, the certainty of her father’s safety, and of the departure of the pirates, seemed to strike the girl’s imagination. A smile passed over her face.
“Isabel,” said the soldier with a sudden burst of passion, his emotion mastering him, “I have loved you from the first time I ever saw you!”
The black eyes had been gazing on him with a wild vacant look, as the girl lived over again, in imagination, the terrible scene she had witnessed on deck, when the bulky form of the Malay leader had so nearly borne her lover down; the day, too, when on the banks of the Zambesi he had stood between her and a terrible death; and now the tension of her nerves giving way, she sobbed deeply and convulsively.
“I have loved you ever since I saw you, Isabel, and strange to say it is the only love I have ever known,” he continued, breaking the silence.