No, he did not see, but then he did not know. How could I go in the ship again with Helen? Besides, I had determined to win Elsie for my wife, and how could I do that if I let her go now, thinking what she did of me?
"Well, Will, I can't go," said I once more; "and I don't think I shall go to sea again, I am sick of it."
Will stared, and whistled, and laughed.
"Ho!" said he; "I think I see how the land lies. You are going to settle in British Columbia, eh? You are a sly dog, but I can see through you. I know your little love-affair; Helen told me as much as that one day."
"Well, then, Will," I answered wearily, for I was out of heart lying there, "if you know, you can understand now why I am not going to sail with you. But, Will," and I rose on my elbow, hurting myself considerably as I did so, "let me implore you not to drink in future. Have done with it. It will be your ruin and your wife's—aye, and if I sailed with you, mine as well. Give me your hand, and say you will be a sober man for the future, and then I shall be content to go where I must go—aye, and where I will go."
He gave me his hand, that was hot with what he had been drinking even then (it was eleven in the morning), and I saw tears in his eyes.
"I will try, Tom," he muttered; "but——"
I think that "but" was the saddest word, and the most prophetic, I ever heard on any man's lips. I saw how vain it was, and turned away. He shook hands, and went without saying more than "Good-by, Tom." I saw him twice after that, and just twice.
By the time I was out of the hospital the Vancouver was ready to go to sea, being bound to England; and she might have sailed even then, only it was necessary for Tom Mackenzie and one or two others to remain as witnesses when they tried Matthias for stabbing me. I shall not go into a long description of the trial, for I have read in books of late so many trial scenes that I fear I should not have the patience to give details, which, after all, are not necessary, since the whole affair was so simple. And yet, what followed afterward from that affair I can remember as brightly and distinctly as if in a glass—the look of the dingy court, the fierce and revengeful eyes of Matthias, who never spoke till the last, and the appearance of Helen and Fanny (Elsie was not there)—when the judge after the verdict inflicted a sentence of eighteen months' hard labor on the prisoner. Perhaps he had been in prison before, and knew what it meant, or it was simply the bitter thought of a revengeful Oriental at being worsted by his opponent; but when he heard the sentence, he leant forward and grasped the rail in front of him tightly, and spoke. His skin was dark and yet pallid, the perspiration stood in beads on his forehead, he bit his lips until blood came, while his eyes looked more like the eyes of a human beast than those of a man. This is what he said as he looked at me, and he spoke with a strange intensity which hushed all noise.
"When I come out of jail I will track you night and day, wherever you go or whatever you do to escape me. Though you think I do not know where you are, I shall always be seeking for you, and at last I shall find you. If a curse of mine could touch you, you should rot and wither now, but the time will come when my hand shall strike you down!"