My face grew hotter, and I stammered foolishly as I answered her that I begged she would call me by what name she pleased, but that if it pleased my Captain to call me Ralph, then Ralph I was ready to be.
‘Well and good, Ralph,’ she said.
We had parted hands by this time, but I was still staring at her, full of wonder.
‘This boy,’ said the Captain, ‘goes with us in the Royal Christopher. We will find our New World together. He is a good fellow, and should make a good sailor in time.’
As the Captain spoke of me and the girl looked at me I felt hotter and more foolish, and could think of nothing to say. But even if I could have thought of anything to say I had no time to say it in, for there came an interruption which ended my embarrassment; a horn sounded loudly, and every soul in Sendennis knew that the coach was in.
In a moment everything was changed. The Captain took his hand from my shoulder; the girl took her gaze from my face. There was a clatter of wheels, a trampling of horses’ hoofs. The coach had drawn up in front of the inn door. We three—my Captain, the girl, and myself—ran across the hall and out on the portico. There was the usual crowd about the newly arrived coach; but there was only one person in the crowd for whom we looked, and him we soon found.
A lithe figure in a buff travelling coat swung off the box-seat, and Lancelot was with us again. He had an arm around the girl’s neck, and kissed her with no heed of the people; he had a hand clasped between the two hands of the Captain, who squeezed his fingers fondly. Then he looked at me, and leaving his kindred he caught both my hands in both his, while his joy shone in his eyes.
‘Raphael, my old Raphael, is it you?’ he said; ‘but my heart is glad of this.’
I wrung his hands. I could scarcely speak for happiness at seeing him again.