From the cable station Billy, still accompanied by his faithful retainers, returned to the power-house. There he bade farewell to the black brothers who had been his assistants, and upon one of them pressed a sum of money.
As they parted, this one, as though giving the password of a secret society, chanted solemnly:
“A HUIT HEURES JUSTE!” And Billy clasped his hand and nodded.
At the office of the Royal Dutch West India Line Billy purchased a ticket to New York and inquired were there many passengers. “The ship is empty,” said the agent.
“I am glad,” said Billy, “for one of my assistants may come with me. He also is being deported.”
“You can have as many cabins as you want,” said the agent. “We are so sorry to see you go that we will try to make you feel you leave us on your private yacht.”
The next two hours Billy spent in seeking out those acquaintances from whom he could borrow money. He found that by asking for it in homoeopathic doses he was able to shame the foreign colony into loaning him all of one hundred dollars. This, with what he had in hand, would take Claire and himself to New York and for a week keep them alive. After that he must find work or they must starve.
In the garden of the Cafe Ducrot Billy placed his guard at a table with bottles of beer between them, and at an ‘adjoining table with Claire plotted the elopement for that night. The garden was in the rear of the hotel and a door in the lower wall opened into the rue Cambon, that led directly to the water-front.
Billy proposed that at eight o’clock Claire should be waiting in the rue Cambon outside this door. They would then make their way to one of the less frequented wharfs, where Claire would arrange to have a rowboat in readiness, and in it they would take refuge on the steamer. An hour later, before the flight of Claire could be discovered, they would have started on their voyage to the mainland.
“I warn you,” said Billy, “that after we reach New York I have only enough to keep us for a week. It will be a brief honey-moon. After that we will probably starve. I’m not telling you this to discourage you,” he explained; “only trying to be honest.”