“I ask nothing, captain,” he said in a voice as gentle as ever; “I should be very sorry to make you fail in your duty. I should only like to speak a little to Laura, and to beg you to protect her in the event of her surviving me, which I don’t think likely.”
“Oh! as for that, it’s all right, my lad,” I said to him; “if you have no objection, I will take her to her family on my return to France, and will only leave her when she no longer wishes to see me. But, in my opinion, you can flatter yourself that she won’t recover from that blow; poor little woman!”
He took both my hands, and pressed them, saying to me:
“My good captain, you are suffering more than I from what remains for you to do, I know very well; but what can we do? I can count on you to keep for her the little that belongs to me, to protect her, to see that she receives whatever her old mother may leave her, can I not? to defend her life, her honour, can I not? and also to see that her health is always cared for.—Stay,” he added in a lower tone, “I must tell you that she is very delicate; often her chest is so much affected that she faints several times in a day; she must always be well wrapped up. In fact you will take the place of her father, her mother, and myself as much as possible, is that not so? If she could keep the rings that her mother gave her, I should be very glad. But, if it is needful to sell them for her, it must certainly be done. My poor Laurette! see how beautiful she is!”
As things were beginning to get too affecting, I was worried, and began to frown; I had spoken to him cheerfully to prevent myself growing weak; but I was no longer anxious about that: “Come, enough!” I said to him, “honest folk understand each other well enough. Go and speak to her, and let us make haste.”
I pressed his hand in a friendly way, and, as he did not let mine go and kept looking at me in a peculiar manner: “Let me see!” I added, “if I have any advice to give you, it is not to speak to her of this. We will arrange the matter without her expecting it, or you either, so be at ease; that’s my affair!”
“Ah! that makes a difference,” he said, “I didn’t know ... that will be better certainly. Besides, the good-byes! the good-byes! they weaken one.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, “don’t be a child, it’s better so. Don’t kiss her, my friend, don’t kiss her, if you can manage it, or you are lost.”
I gave him my hand again, and let him go. Oh! it was very hard for me, all that.
It seemed to me, upon my word, that he kept the secret well; for they walked up and down, arm in arm, for a quarter of an hour, and they came back to the ship’s side to get the string and the dress, which one of my cabin-boys had fished up.