“Think well, ladies. You want us to go now, but when we are gone and you are here alone, won’t you feel desolate and deserted?”
“We will only be glad you’re gone,” I said.
“I don’t think I ever heard such a polite speech in my life,” said Captain Locke, laughing. “Holliway, I think we had better leave immediately.”
He stood cool and smiling, but Mr. Holliway, whose health was not robust, and upon whom the hardships of the journey and the excitement had told, was ghastly. Not that he lacked courage. He would have stayed and died for us, as far as that was concerned; but his physical endurance was not great, and from the first he had been oppressed with a presentiment of evil.
Milicent had drawn Captain Locke aside, and was urging him to go, as I knew, and, as I think, to destroy the papers which Holliway felt imperiled him. He gave her a smiling negative.
“You must go yourself, and please help us make the captain go,” I was saying to Mr. Holliway.
“You will have to do that,” he replied. “I have said what I could. It is madness for us to stay, as I am thoroughly convinced now. You would be safer without us. Locke doesn’t think so, but I know it. His character and the papers he carries increase the danger for us all.”
Captain Locke and Milicent had finished their conference.
“We will go,” he said quietly. “A pen and ink, my friend,” to the Dutchman.
“Make haste and go,” we pleaded.