“Now we know!”
Chapter Seventy Three.
The Last Leaf in the Log.
No common pirates then, no mere crew of mutinous sailors, have carried off Carmen Montijo and Iñez Alvarez. It has been done by Francisco de Lara and Faustino Calderon, if or although there is no evidence of the latter having been aboard the barque, it is deducible, and not even doubtful. For a scheme such as that, the confederates were not likely to have parted.
The young officers have returned to the quarterdeck, and there stand gazing in one another’s faces; on both an expression of anguish, which the new discovery has intensified. It was painful enough to think of their betrothed sweethearts being the sport of rough robbers; but to picture them in the power of De Lara and Calderon—knowing what they do of these men—is agony itself.
“Yes; it’s all clear,” says Crozier. “No idea of getting gold has brought the thing about. That may have influenced the others who assisted them; but with them the motive was different—I see it now.”
“Do you know, Ned, I half suspected it from the first. You remember what I said as we were leaving San Francisco. After what happened between us and the gamblers, I had my fears about our girls being left in the same place with them. Still, who’d have thought of their following them aboard ship? Above all, with Blew there, and after his promise to protect them! You remember him saying, he would lay down his life for theirs?”
“He swore it—to me he swore it. Oh! if ever I set eyes on him again, I’ll make him suffer for that broken oath!”