Though Ethel and Rose had retired to rest, the hour was not late, and Captain Phillips, Mr. Basset, and Hawkshaw were still lingering over a glass of wine in the cabin, when Dr. Heriot entered it.
The pallor of his face, and the excited expression of his eyes, made them start with exclamations of surprise and inquiry; and their alarm increased when he filled up a glass with port and drained it, the crystal rattling against his teeth while he did so.
"Hallo, doctor, what the deuce is the matter?" asked bluff Captain Phillips, changing colour, or rather losing it partially. "You have been forward—eh?"
"Yes, sir; and have there heard more than enough to confirm our worst fears."
Phillips arose, and closed the cabin door. He then summoned from his berth Mr. Quail (as Mr. Foster, the second mate, had charge of the deck), and they, together with Mr. Basset and Hawkshaw, heard with undisguised consternation the result of the doctor's eavesdropping.
As for Hawkshaw, he had long endured the horrible conviction of guilt, with the still more gnawing sense or dread of perpetual suspicion in others. He loved Ethel, yet, as we have said elsewhere, at times he almost hated her for her coldness to him; but now his soul was full of terror—terror for her and for himself, as he knew he would meet with little mercy from the Barradas and their friends. Retribution for the crime he had committed at Acton Chine was about to come at last, and he had fallen into a trap of his own devising!
Neither Captain Phillips nor Mr. Quail were much astonished, though grieved and alarmed, by Dr. Heriot's tidings; but poor Mr. Basset's first thought was for his daughters—his young, delicate, and tenderly-nurtured girls; and already, in his excited imagination, he beheld them, after his own butchery, in the rude grasp of those lawless wretches, and subjected to the grossest indignities, far from help or human aid, upon the lonely sea, and in a floating hell—indignities the mere idea of which wrung the poor man's heart with agony.
To-morrow, to-night, even now, they might be advancing towards the cabin, intent on assassination and robbery!
The dread was maddening to the unhappy parent, who made a step towards his daughters' sleeping place, as if in anticipation, by thought and deed, to save them from the coming peril. He had no voice or coherence of thought for a time, and listened like one in a dream to the discussion or consultation now held by the officers of the ship.
After relinquishing his practice as a barrister in London, Scriven Basset had spent many years of ease and affluence at Laurel Lodge, and all unused to alarms or excitements, he felt himself totally destitute of the stamina or courage requisite for facing so sudden and perilous an emergency. Personal danger he might have confronted, for he had all the spirit of a gentleman; but at the thought of his daughters—the graceful and ladylike Ethel, the sweet and playful Rose—his soul seemed to die within him.