Commodore Junk Part 71

"What has he done for you!" cried Bart. "Nought but give you hard words, and curse you ever since he has been here, and yet you go on loving him!"

"What have I ever done for you, Bart, but give you hard words and cold looks, and yet you have gone on loving me!"

"True," said Bart, hoa.r.s.ely; "and so I shall till I die!"

"And so shall I, Bart, till I die!"

"Don't talk like that," he groaned. "It's better to live and suffer than to talk of death. I give in--once more I give in!"

"Then go; I will watch!"

"No, captain; don't send me away! Trust me this once. I am faithful to you!"

"Ay; but not to him."

There was a pause, and Bart seemed to be struggling hard with himself, till he had won some terrible victory.

"Tell me," he said at last, "tell me to swear. I'll be as true to him as I've been to you, and I'll swear it. I'll die for him, if you say I am!"

"Then swear, Bart. Swear that I may depend on you as I would on myself!

That, for my sake, you will defend him from all evil, come when it may!"

"Because you love him?" said Bart, slowly.

"Because I love him, man!"

There was a painful silence for a few minutes, and then, as he knelt there, on the time-worn stones, the simple-hearted single-natured man said, in a low husky voice--

"I swear it: so help me G.o.d!"

Bart rose slowly, with his breath coming and going as if after some terrible struggle, and, as he stood there trembling, he felt his hand seized and held tightly between two warm, moist palms.

He let it rest there for a few moments, and then s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

"What are you going to do?" whispered the buccaneer.

"Obey orders," said Bart relapsing, as it were, to his former manner.

"No; stay. I have only you to trust."

"And you'll leave me now along of him?"

"Without a feeling of dread, Bart; because the temptation would come in vain."

"Are we all mad!" said Bart, softly, as he stood listening to the retiring footsteps; and then he sank down upon the stones, with his back to the wall, and the light shining upon his rugged head.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

ONE PRISONER FREE.

"Dinny! You here!"

"Yes, sor--it's me."

"But at liberty?"

"Yes, sor; and I'm to attend on ye as I did avore."

"But--"

"Oh, it's all right, sor! The captain's a bit busy, and I'm not to be hung at present. I'm to be kept till there's a big holiday, and be strung up then. It's the fashion out in this part of the counthry."

"My poor fellow," cried Humphrey, "I am glad to see you safe again!"

"Safe, sir! and d'ye call it safe, whin the first time, perhaps, as the skipper gets in a pa.s.sion I shall be hung up in all me youth and beauty, like one o' the big drooping flowers on a tree!"

"Nonsense, man!"

"Oh, it's sinse, sor; and I shall droop, too, wid all my moight!"

"No, no," said Humphrey, as he pondered upon the past, and saw in Dinny's reprieve a desire to gratify him. "No, my lad. I appealed to the captain to spare your life, and this is the result."

"Did ye, now, sor! Sure, an' I thought that the pretty little darlin'

had been down on her knees to him; and, knowing what a timpting little beauty she is, it made me shiver till I began to consider what sort of a man the captain is, and how, when the boys have been capturing the women, and sharing 'em out all round, the skipper niver wance took a fancy to a single sowl. Faix, and he's always seemed to take to you, sor, more than to annyone else. Some men's of a marrying sort, and some ar'n't. The skipper's one of the ar'n'ts."

Humphrey looked at the man curiously, but it was evident that he had no hidden meaning.

"Sure, sor," continued Dinny, "when I think about you two, it has always seemed to me as if the captain wanted to be David to your Jonathan, only the other way on, for the skipper isn't a bit like King David."

"Have you suffered much!"

"Suffered, sor!"

"I mean in prison."

"Divil a bit, sor! I've lived like a foighting-c.o.c.k. They always fade a man up well in this part of the counthry before they finish him off."

"You may make your mind easy, Dinny," said Humphrey, thoughtfully; "the captain will not take your life unless he takes mine too."

"An' is it mak me moind aisy, sor, when I can't get s.p.a.che of the darlin', and that Black Mazzard in hiding somewhere and freckening the poor sowl to death!"

"Surely, there is nothing to fear from him now?"

"Faix, and I don't know that same. I shall always be freckened about him till a dacent praste has tied us two together toightly, and then I sha'n't be happy till I know that Black Mazzard's nailed up bechuckst four boards; and if I've annything to do wid it they shall be as thick as trees and nailed wid screws."

"He has made his escape somewhere?"