Mac was standing by her chair. ‘Mrs Fuller,’ he said, in a low impressive voice, ‘this is a beauteous scene. It remoinds me of Doblin Bay or the Cove of Cark. It is a sad scene.’
‘A sad scene, Mr MacWhirter!’ said Mrs Fuller. ‘Why, I was just thinking it was a gay scene, with all those lights, and’——
‘It is a sad scene for those who are looking at it for the last toime, Mrs Fuller,’ said Mac in an almost sepulchral tone.
‘Gracious! Mr MacWhirter, what do you mean?’ asked Mrs Fuller. ‘What a dreadfully uncomfortable thing to say!’
‘Oi mane, Mrs Fuller,’ replied Mac, ‘that this toime to-morrow noight there’ll be one less passenger on board the Sicilia.’
‘Why, of course, Mr MacWhirter; for I suppose our little company will be broken up here, and it is never pleasant separating from kind friends.’
‘Ye mistake me,’ said Mac. ‘The moon that will shoine to-morrow noight will look upon the corpse of either Mister Goodhew or of Terence MacWhirter; and it’ll be all for the sake of yerself, Mrs Fuller.’
Mrs Fuller saw that Mac was serious, and the idea flashed across her mind that the two rivals for her hand were about to fight a duel on her account, so she resolved to take the earliest opportunity of speaking to the captain about it.
She did speak to the captain, who spoke certain words to her in return.
Very early the next morning, before even the sun had peered round the corner of the Victoria Peak, the captain’s gig put off from the Sicilia. In it were the captain himself, the doctor, Goodhew, Mac, and we outsiders. We were soon alongside the Bund, and in a few seconds were being whisked away in the direction of the Happy Valley as fast as chairmen could take us. We went swiftly by the cemetery gate and the Grand Stand to the extreme end of the Valley, where there was no chance of interruption.