“And she understood at once,” he said, looking at the water. “She found out my pet besetting sin on the spot, and paid it off. My God, how she understood! And she said I was better than she was! Better than she was!” He laughed at the absurdity of the notion. “I wonder if girls guess at one-half a man’s life. They can’t, or—they wouldn’t marry us.” He took her gift out of his pocket, and considered it in the light of a miracle and a pledge of the comprehension that, one day, would lead to perfect happiness. Meantime, Maisie was alone in London, with none to save her from danger. And the packed wilderness was very full of danger.
Dick made his prayer to Fate disjointedly after the manner of the heathen as he threw the piece of silver into the river. If any evil were to befal, let him bear the burden and let Maisie go unscathed, since the threepenny piece was dearest to him of all his possessions. It was a small coin in itself, but Maisie had given it, and the Thames held it, and surely the Fates would be bribed for this once.
The drowning of the coin seemed to cut him free from thought of Maisie for the moment. He took himself off the bridge and went whistling to his chambers with a strong yearning for some man-talk and tobacco after his first experience of an entire day spent in the society of a woman. There was a stronger desire at his heart when there rose before him an unsolicited vision of the Barralong dipping deep and sailing free for the Southern Cross.
CHAPTER VIII
And these two, as I have told you,
Were the friends of Hiawatha,
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.
—Hiawatha.
Torpenhow was paging the last sheets of some manuscript, while the Nilghai, who had come for chess and remained to talk tactics, was reading through the first part, commenting scornfully the while.
“It’s picturesque enough and it’s sketchy,” said he; “but as a serious consideration of affairs in Eastern Europe, it’s not worth much.”
“It’s off my hands at any rate.... Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine slips altogether, aren’t there? That should make between eleven and twelve pages of valuable misinformation. Heigho!” Torpenhow shuffled the writing together and hummed—
Young lambs to sell, young lambs to sell,
If I’d as much money as I could tell,
I never would cry, Young lambs to sell!
Dick entered, self-conscious and a little defiant, but in the best of tempers with all the world.