The passage from San Francisco to Victoria takes about four days, and in that time I had to make up my mind what I was going to do. If what Fanny said were true, Elsie loved me, and it was only that foolish and wretched affair with Helen that stood in my way. Yet, could I tell the girl how matters were? It seemed to me then, and seems to me now, that I was bound in honor not to tell her. I could not say to her brutally that my brother's wife had made love to me, and that I was wholly blameless. It would be cowardly, and yet I ought to clear myself. It was an awkward dilemma. Then, again, it was quite possible that Fanny was mistaken; if she did not care for me, it was all the harder, and I could not court her with that mark against me. Yet I was determined to win her, and as I sat in my berth I grew fierce and savage in my heart. I swore that I would gain her over, I would force her to love me, if I had to kill any who stood in my way. For love makes a man devilish sometimes as well as good. I had come on board saying, "If I see no chance to win her before I get to Victoria, I will let her go." And now when we were just outside the Golden Gate, I swore to follow her always. "Yes, even if she spurns me, if she mocks, taunts me, I will make her come to me at last, put her arms round my neck, and ask my forgiveness." I said this, and unconsciously I added, "I will follow her night and day, in sunshine and in rain, in health or sickness."
Then I started violently, for I was using words like those of the Malay, who was waiting his time to follow me, and for ever in the daytime or nighttime I knew he was whetting the keen edge of his hate. I could see him in his cell; I could imagine him recalling my face to mind, for I knew what such men are. I had served as second mate in a vessel that had been manned with Orientals and the off-scourings of Singapore, such as Matthias was, and I knew them only too well. He would follow me, even as I followed her, and as she was a light before me, he would be a dark shadow behind me. I wished then that I had killed him on board the Vancouver, for I felt that we should one day meet; and who could discern what our meeting would bring forth in our lives? I know that from that time forward he never left me, for in the hour that I vowed to follow Elsie until she loved me, I saw very clearly that he would keep his word, though he had but strength to crawl after me and kill me as I slept. Henceforth, he was always more or less in my mind. Yet, if I could win Elsie first, I did not care. It might be a race between us, and her love might be a shield to protect me in my hour of need. I prayed that it might be so, and if it could not, then at least let me win her love before the end.
For two days I kept out of the Flemings' way, or rather out of the way of the girls, for Mr. Fleming himself could not be avoided, as he slept in the men's berth in a bunk close to mine. I believe that the first day on board he spoke to Elsie about me; indeed I know he did, for I heard so afterward; and I think it was only on her assurance that there was and could be nothing between us, that he endured the situation so easily. In the first place, although he was not rich, he was fairly well off in Australia; and though the British Columbian ranch property was not equal in value to that which he had made for himself, yet it represented a sum of money such as I could not scarcely make in many years in these hard times. It would hardly be human nature for a father to look upon me as the right sort of man for his daughter, especially since I was such a fool as to quit the sea without anything definite awaiting me on land. So, I say, that if he had thought that Elsie loved me I might have found him a disagreeable companion, and it was no consolation to me to see that he treated me in a sort of half-contemptuous, half-pitying way, for I would rather have seen him like one of the lizards on the Australian plains, such as the girls had told me of, which erect a spiny frill over their heads, and swell themselves out the whole length of their body until their natural ugliness becomes a very horror and scares anything which has the curiosity or rashness to approach and threaten them.
"What are you going to do in Alaska or British Columbia, Tom?" said he to me one day. "Do you think of farming, or seal-hunting, or gold-mining, or what? I should like to hear your plans, if you have any." And then he went on without waiting for an answer, showing plainly that he thought that I had none, and was a fool. "And that young idiot Harmer, why didn't he stick to his ship?"
"Because he will never stick to anything, Mr. Fleming," I answered, "though he is a clever young fellow, and fit for other things than sailoring, if I'm a judge. But as for myself I don't think I am, and yet when I make up my mind to a thing, I usually do it."
"You usually succeed, then?" said he, with a hard smile. "It is well to have belief in one's own strength and abilities. But sometimes others have strength as well, and then"——
"And then," I answered, "it is very often a question of will."
He smiled again and dropped the subject.
On the third day out from San Francisco, when we were running along the coast of Oregon, I found at last an opportunity of speaking to Elsie. I first went to Fanny.
"Fanny, my dear girl, I want to speak to you a few minutes." I sat down beside her.