“I won’t have it!” he nearly shouted. To me,
“Don’t you go, or I’ll——”
I stopped him with a knowing look, which he rightly understood to mean that it would be well to lay her suspicions by going, and that I might be depended on to handle the matter satisfactorily. In truth, I was enjoying the situation too much for thought of graver things. And I had never seen Annabel so superb.
“Father,” she said, “you owe this to me, and I owe it to you.”
Mr. Vancouver’s uneasy face betrayed his predicament. Might he trust my ability to deceive Captain Mason? was his evident thought. The peril was great. I was maliciously happy over the grinding of the man.
Suppose I should make a slip with Captain Mason: that would mean the hangman’s noose for Mr. Vancouver,—I knew he was thinking all that. I could not resist the temptation to harry him.
“I go,” I said to Annabel.
She wavered, but her courage rose, and with reckless heroism she stepped out without looking at her father.
I followed in silence. She did not glance back, and I think she was glad that the men remained in the hut. With her head held up by the high purpose within her, she walked as though she were above the stars and they were her stepping-stones. Once she stopped short. I was certain that love had conquered and that she would tell me my willingness to go satisfied her, and so would send me away; but she went desperately on.
There was a brilliant tropical moon, and the captain was sitting in the shine of it on the outer bench of his hut. He rose in surprise.