The Chevalier waved his hands. “Pressently, pressently, my dear sir. But what did you say—de sick person? Dere iss no one sick.”
“Surely I haven’t come to the wrong ship, have I? I understood from the messenger that there was an Englishman on board dangerously ill—and he brought me here.”
“Oh, dere iss some mistake! Did det fool employ dose words?”
“Well, now that I remember, he did not exactly. He said that the man needed my ghostly services, I believe.”
“Ah, det explains de metter!” cried the Chevalier, laughing joyously. “It iss to merry de Englishman, not to bury him, det you are wanted, my dear sir.”
“But that’s impossible!” cried the clergyman, starting back. “The marriage would not be legal.”
The Chevalier’s countenance exhibited every sign of the deepest dejection. “But dis iss a blow!” he cried. “What iss de law, referend sir?”
Mr Judson’s own mind was not quite clear about the matter, but he did his best to give reasons for his very definite impression that the celebration of the marriage of a British subject in foreign parts, without the presence of one of Her Majesty’s representatives, would render all concerned in it liable to divers pains and penalties. The Chevalier heard him to the end with great politeness, putting questions now and then which led the conversation into pleasant little legal byways, and finally observed complacently—
“But dis will be all right, you see, for de merrich iss to take place at Damascus, and de British Consul will be dere.”
“Damascus! But you said it was to be on board. What!—why—we are moving!”