"So be it. Now," turning to Granger, "have you any more?"
"You see them. Take your choice or leave 'em. The Dutchman still wants more."
Geoffrey did see them as he looked round, his eyes noting that amongst the number there might be metal for the ships of war. The youth with the sweet-toned voice who had sung the love-ballad of past days, was, he observed, endeavouring to evade his glance, whereby he judged that he was hoping to go to the colonies and thus to become eventually (as the young man doubtless supposed) a prosperous farmer or dealer. Only, because Geoffrey knew well enough what his real fate would be, he determined that he would have him too, and said so to Granger (as we will still call him) loud enough for the other to hear.
"No! no!" the latter cried, learning what his lot was. "No! no! Not that. I have offered myself voluntarily to this man to be sent to Massachusetts. I want a home--to make a home for Dolly; my Dolly. I want to be a colonist."
"My lad," said Geoffrey, "you are deceived. Never will you be a colonist. Once you are in that ship which is lying off the Marshes, you will go to the colonies, it is true, but not as you think. Instead, as an indented sla----"
"For Heaven's sake," whispered Granger, "do not ruin my last chance of a livelihood. I have been ruined once, and--I was innocent. Have some mercy."
For a moment the captain of the Mignonne looked at him coldly, contemptuously, as an honourable man looked in those days at a crimp, even though he did not hesitate to avail himself of his services in the cause of his duty; as, in those and these days, too, an honourable man looks at one whom he knows to have been disgraced; then, scarcely understanding what secret feeling moved him, he murmured to Granger, "So be it"; while, turning to the young fellow, he said, "I cannot spare you for the colonies. You must serve your country against its enemies. I choose you, too"; and heedless of the other's cries and remonstrances, he bade Granger name the price.
He took also three others, all of whom he marshalled outside Jamaica Court under the superintendence of the ex-foretop-man, George Redway, and so marched them off to the landing-steps where the boat was to come for him.
Yet, as they went along, he was not thinking of them, but of the man, Lewis Granger, whom he had once more come face to face with that day.
"Innocent!" he said to himself. "Innocent! he protests. Yet in our eyes, in the eyes of all of us--his brother sailors!--his guilt was proved up to the hilt. But to-day--to-day--there was a look in the man's face--a tone in his voice--oh! my God, if, after all, it were so! If it were so! Then, indeed, has Fortune been his foe!"