'No; on that night he is on duty at the Palace of the Prince of Orange.'
'Well—what about all this?'
'Listen,' said Van Schrekhorn, leaning forward on the table and lowering his voice almost to a whisper, while the colour in his bloated visage deepened, and an expression of intense cunning stole into his watery bloodshot eyes: 'let us carry her off as her sedan bears her from the ridotto!'
'To where?'
'Listen. I know a skipper whose ship is now in the Maese, and almost ready to sail for the coast of France. She is anchored off Maesluis now; let us once get her on board and the Hoek van Holland will soon be left astern, and the girl your own, unless you are a greater fool than I think you.'
Morganstjern made no immediate reply, so his tempter spoke again.
'Once on board that ship, her honour will be compromised, and marriage alone can restore it. Let her be once on board that ship with you, I say, and she cannot be so blind as not to see that she will have gone a great deal too far to draw back.'
'Right!' exclaimed Morganstjern, as a glance of triumph came into his eyes. 'I have a political mission to France, and it will be supposed that she has eloped with me, and befooled the Scot Baronald. With all her contempt and scorn of me, she little knows that her fate is to become my wife—my wife—mine! Once that, and then let her look to herself!' he added as a savage expression mingled with the triumph that sparkled in his shifty eyes, and he smote the table with his clenched hand.
'The distance from the Hague to Maesluis is only eleven miles—a few pipes, as the people say,' resumed Schrekhorn; 'my friend shall have a boat waiting us at a quiet spot among the willows that fringe the shore, near a deserted windmill on the river-bank; and then we shall take her on board. Once under hatches, her fate will soon be sealed.'
'How can I thank you?'