But there were on board another pair of lovers in whom we should be equally interested, and whose prospects were not so bright, perhaps, for Heriot had an income, however small, and plenty of "expectations."
When the excitement, consequent to Mr. Basset's illness, if we may term it so, and to Pedro's story, death, and burial were all passed, Morley Ashton and Ethel resumed their usual habit of thought; and again in their communings they began to speculate on their future, and to hope that, on reaching the Isle of France, Mr. Basset, by his legal influence, would be able to procure for him some suitable employment, by means of which he could make an adequate livelihood—the hope that dawned of old at Laurel Lodge—and their engagement might be fulfilled.
But Mr. Basset, to whom Morley had spoken of these things, somewhat dashed their cherished hopes, by frequently shaking his head, and declaring that his health had suffered so much, that he felt himself quite inadequate to assume his place on the bench, and that hence all local and legal influence would be gone.
There were times, too, when he became quite gloomy, and feared, he said, that he "might only land to die—land to be laid in a foreign soil, far from that God's acre, where his dear wife lay at Acton-Rennel; and then, what would become of his poor girls without a protector in the world?"
These gloomy forebodings filled Ethel with sickening apprehension. This was a probable catastrophe, the anticipation of which also made Morley miserable, and he begged Mr. Basset not to speak thus before his eldest daughter; but he rather liked the luxury of dilating on the chances of his own demise.
However, they little knew what fate or fortune had in store for them at the Isle of France, or whether they should ever see that isle at all; and despite his melancholy forebodings, which were merely the result of his shaken nervous system, Mr. Basset recovered rapidly, and on that day, when the Hermione was near the close of her last long tack towards the coast of Africa, he was conveyed on deck, to have a look at Cape Corientes, which is the most eastern portion of the land of Inhambane, and is almost immediately under the Tropic of Capricorn.
Faint and blue the headland rose at the horizon, from a golden-coloured sea, about thirty miles distant, and, through a double-barrelled glass, its outline could be clearly distinguished against the rarefied sky beyond.
"And that is Africa!" said Ethel, regarding the blue streak with her heart full of great thoughts, and her dark eyes full of intelligence and interest as she remembered all she had heard and read of Park and Livingstone, Speke and Grant.
"Yes, Miss Basset," said Morrison, "and a great river, called the Inhambane, flows into the Mozambique Channel but a few miles north of that promontory."
"How I should like to land—to tread the soil there, where it but for only a minute, Morley."