The old man was helped from his horse and seated himself upon a fallen tree, with his precious box clasped upon his knees, speaking no word, but looking straight before him, with a fixed unmeaning gaze. He appeared to be unconscious of what was taking place round him, and insensible of the dangers to which they were exposed. Dorothy knelt down beside him and placed her hands on his. He was muttering wild and incoherent words.
“Grandfather,” she said, “do you know me?”
He looked at her with a frown. “Ay, girl, wherefore not?” he answered. "Talk no more, but fill up my glass till the red wine runs over. There is plenty where it came from--plenty, and gold that is better than wine, girl; and bars of silver and stones of price. We who sail under the Jolly Roger cannot afford to be scrupulous. You are sly, wench, damnably sly, but you will not overreach me. Nay, you shall have a doubloon or two for yourself and a bundle of silks from our next venture. I am grown stiff with this long lying ashore, and am well wearied for a breath of the Spanish Main.
“‘For the guns are all ready and the decks are all clear
And the prize is awaiting the bold Buccaneer!´”
Dorothy rose and wrung her hands with a gesture of despair. Gervase could see that the wild words of the old man had touched her beyond description. It was not so much that they showed his mind had left him; they had revealed the terrible secret of his early life--a secret that till now she had never dreamed of. She had instinctively guessed the truth, and it had covered her with shame, as though the crime and the reproach were her own. Gervase out of regard for her feelings withdrew to a distance, and busied himself in getting ready a supper, which matter, necessary as it was, had quite escaped his thoughts. But Dorothy, though he pressed her strongly, refused to partake of it.
“I cannot taste of food,” she said, “and you know the reason--you also have heard the dreadful words. That accursed money comes--Oh! I might have guessed it, but who would have thought?--and he is so old and so frail and--and I think he is going to die. Oh! it is very terrible. I was so proud of my name, and the honour of my house, and now----”
Gervase had no words with which to comfort her, and so the three--the two men and the girl--sat here in the thicket, speaking never a word. But for the young man, he could not take his eyes off the sweet, strong face that looked so lovely in its grief--the lips that trembled, and the eyes that were dimmed with unshed tears. Half an hour passed in silence; only the far-off murmur of the river came faintly through the twilight, and the whirr of a startled bird, or the hasty scamper of a rabbit or a rat, broke the stillness round them. As yet there was no appearance of Macpherson. And then Gervase began to wonder whether, after all, Dorothy might not have been right in her hasty surmise, and whether he might not have sought his own safety in flight, and left them to their fate. But he instantly dismissed the suggestion from his mind as ungenerous and unjust.
Then, at that moment, a shot rang out in the evening air, and another, and another. The sound came from the river, and as they stood and listened, they could hear the jinging of bridles and the clank of weapons, for the air was somewhat frosty and very still. They had risen to their feet and stood listening, only Gervase had drawn his sword, and instinctively stepped nearer to where the girl was standing. Soon they heard the sound of hasty footsteps and the crashing of branches, as someone made his way with impetuous haste through the underwood. Then Macpherson appeared bareheaded, with a smoking pistol in his hand.
“There is not a moment to lose,” he cried. “Into the road and make what terms you can. They are regular troops and may not use you ill, but escape you cannot, and I may not tarry here. I have done for one of them, and, I think, another will never hear ‘boots and saddle´ sounded again. ´Tis your only hope.”