There was a second cause for annoyance. Four or five of the crew were on shore instead of on board—five, perhaps six of Cairns’s international mob absent, playing the fool, getting drunk, what not, just as their services were urgently required. Cairns was as angry as Dyke about this. The second mate must go off in a boat at once and bring those men aboard dead or alive, with or without their kit; and Dyke exploded, roaring threats—advising the captain to put them in irons after breaking their bones. And then, with more talk of another boat, a boat for Mr. Dyke; with more talk about the pilot, the tide, those papers—then, after all this, suddenly, Miss Verinder understood. The ship was going to sail before its time. The ship was going to sail as soon as it possibly could.
“Yes, my darling, yes. No, you can’t stay now. I’m going ashore myself. I haven’t a minute to spare. Come along.”
As they were rowed away from the ship the other boat parted from them, and Dyke shouted further menaces across the water. He was worried, irritated, answering his Emmie’s questions automatically. She sat bolt upright, rigid, so that her slim body jerked all in one piece as the rowers plunged their oars faster and faster, but she still showed a sympathetic intelligent interest. Replying to her quite sensible inquiries, Dyke told her at which landing-place the mate’s boat would lie waiting for those men; also that if the mate failed to find the absentees he would return to the ship without them. If Dyke could polish off his rather ticklish bit of business, he intended that the ship should leave her moorings in two hours.
“So it’s good-bye, Emmie”—they were close to the shore now—“Good-bye, my best—my dearest—my only love.”
She did not reply, she could not reply. This manner of parting with him was too bitter. It was too bitter.
He hurried her across the landing-stage and through the crowd on the sloped bridge, put her into a cab, and told the driver to take her to the hotel. One more squeeze of the hand, and he had vanished. She could not see if he jumped into another cab himself or crossed the wide roadway towards lofty buildings on the other side. Anyhow he was about his business. It had begun to rain, a gust of cold wind swept through the cab windows.
At the hotel, as she passed his room, the door stood open, and she saw the chambermaid with brush and broom making its emptiness neat and clean for another lodger. There was a litter of crumpled newspapers on the tiled hearth; the low table on which he packed his last valise had been pushed away from the foot of the bed; and the window curtains were looped up high, to keep them out of the dust that the broom was making.
Miss Verinder went into her own room, and remained for a minute motionless, with clenched hands, struggling for breath. This parting was too bitter—much too bitter. It was more than she could bear. She rang the bell, and continued to ring it until the chambermaid came to help her. Then she began to pack, with feverish haste.
Dusk was falling rapidly and the port light of the Mercedaria made a red reflection in the grey stream when, after less than two hours, Dyke got back on board. He had achieved his object, but he roared in anger again at hearing that the mate had not returned with those men.