And yet it might be true! It might be that I did exist for her, largely, filling the room, shutting out her view of the men about us, encroaching even on her sense of her father’s peril. It might be so. At any rate it was to this question that my whole mind was directed—what was she thinking of me? What were the thoughts behind that averted face? Was I still the betrayer of her father? Or—or what was I?
Presently the men began to pour the mess which they had cooked into rough bowls, and for a time the steam, savoury enough to the senses of a hungry man, switched off my thoughts. I took note of the room, while I awaited my turn. The smoke of the drift-wood fire, mingling with the fog that eddied in from the marshes, hid the roof, but the air below was tolerably clear. The men had propped their guns against the wall opposite me and I counted them. There were five. An active man, I thought, might have cast himself between the arms and their owners, and snatching a gun might have held off the five—Levi, I knew, was a white-livered cur. But a crippled man could not do this; nor, as I found a moment later when one of the men thrust a bowl and a hunch of corn-bread on my lap, could he with any success cut up tough pork with a pocket-knife.
The cooking was coarse, but I was famished, and I wrestled manfully with the difficulty. I did so to little purpose, however. The bowl slipped on my knees, I could not steady it. A man sniggered, another laughed. They stopped eating to look at me. At that I lost patience. “Will you cut it for me?” I said, holding out the bowl to the nearest man.
He refused—the truth was my difficulty entertained their clownish souls. “D—n me, cut your own victuals,” he answered churlishly. “Enough, that I’ve cooked ’em for you.”
“Be thankful you’ve a throat to swallow ’em with!” said a second.
The others laughed; and at that, I who had taken with coolness their threat to murder me, felt such a rage rise within me, helpless as I was, that the tears stood in my eyes. I looked at Constantia.
There was the faintest stain of color in her cheeks, but apparently she was unconscious of what was passing. Still and self-contained, she was eating and drinking with the steady purpose of one who was set on maintaining her strength. As quickly as anger had risen, it died in me, and, alas, my heart sank with it. The men might jeer and taunt and laugh, I no longer cared. I finished my meal as I could, heeding their amusement as little as she did. For the savor had left the food. I saw that I must have been mistaken. Yes, I must have been mistaken. She could not care for me.
When all was eaten Levi went down with two of the men to set a guard, and he was absent for some time. When he returned, wood was put on the fire and the lamp was extinguished. For a time he and the men remained apart talking in low voices, but soon, one by one, they left the group, pulled cloaks or blankets about them and lay down—one of them across the trap-door. Levi made the girl some offer of accommodation, but she refused it, and dragging a second box to the fire, to eke out the first, she made a rough couch, on which she sat with her feet raised and her back against the wall. I lay on the opposite side of the fire, some way from her; and at times I fancied that her eyes dwelt on me. But I could not be sure, for her face, half shrouded by her cloak and in shadow, was hard to distinguish; while I, when I looked that way, met the light.
If I had been sure that her eyes were upon me, if I had been sure that she thought of me and thanked me, I could have faced the prospect more lightly. But I had no certainty of this; I had, indeed, much reason to doubt it, and I looked forward to a night of suspense. I foresaw that as the warmth died in me and the small hours chilled my bones and damped my resolution, I should repent of what I had done. A man snored, another muttered in his sleep, the mosquitoes troubled me. At intervals a horse moved restlessly in the stable below. A marsh-owl, hunting along the river bank, tore the night from time to time with its shrill screech. I had no hope of sleep.
The danger that is thrust on a man, he must meet. But the danger into which, being no hero, he has thrust himself, is another matter. I knew that long before morning, I should feel that I had cast away my life. Thoughts of Osgodby and England, visions of home faces, now thousands of miles away, would rise to reproach me. I should see—with that terrible four o’clock in the morning clearness—that for a fancy, for a woman’s whim, for a fantastic point of honor, I had done what I had no right to do; I had sacrificed my life and all that I had valued a short time back. I should remember that she had scarcely touched my hand in friendship, had never listened to a word of love, never said even that she forgave me!