The Marriage Of Esther Part 8

"My dear Miss McCartney, what on earth can have made you imagine such a thing?"

"But I know you do. I'm afraid I was very rude to you the other day. I have never forgiven myself for it. It was very ungrateful of me after all the kind things you have done for me since I have known you."

"But, I a.s.sure you, you are quite mistaken. Your treatment of me may have been a little unkind, but it was certainly not rude. Besides, what I have done for you has all been done out of pure selfishness, because, you see, it gives me pleasure to serve you."

"Mr. Murkard hinted to me this morning that you are thinking of leaving us. Is that true?"

"I _was_ thinking of doing so, but----"

"But you will forgive me before you go, won't you? Let us be friends again for the little time that is left to us."

She held out her dry hand towards him; he leaned forward gravely and took it, after which they were silent again for some time. The crisis was pa.s.sed, but the situation was still sufficiently awkward to deprive them both of conversation. By the time they had recovered enough to resume it, they had pa.s.sed the hulk and were approaching the township jetty. He brought the boat alongside in a masterly fashion, and held it close to the steps for his companion to disembark.

"Thank you, Mr. Ellison," she said, as she stepped out. "I have enjoyed myself very much. I hope you will have a pleasant sail back!"

"I am going to wait for you."

"Indeed you are not. I could not think of such a thing. I shall be sure to find someone who will put me across."

"I am going to wait for you. It will be very pleasant sitting here; and, remember, we have just made friends. You must not quarrel with me so soon again."

"Very well, since you wish it. I will try not to be any longer than I can help."

She tripped up the wooden steps and disappeared along the jetty. He made the boat fast, and seating himself in the place she had just vacated, lit his pipe.

For nearly an hour he sat and smoked. The heavens were bright with stars above him; the sleeping waters rose and fell round the piers with gentle gurgling noises. A number of pearling luggers rode at anchor on either hand of him, and the township lights twinkled merrily ash.o.r.e. His heart was happier than it had been for some time past, and yet again and again Murkard's words of warning rose upon his recollection. Did the girl love him? And more important still, if she did, did he love her as she deserved to be loved? He asked himself these two questions repeatedly, and each time he could not answer either of them to his satisfaction.

Was his affection for her a sincere one, founded on a genuine admiration? He had been piqued by her behaviour; his vanity (poor remnant of a feeling) had been hurt by it. Since then he had brought himself to believe he loved her. Was he prepared to sacrifice everything for her? Again the torturing doubt. It would be pa.s.sing sweet to love her; but could he do so with a clear conscience? He knew his failing--could he lie to himself? The night affected him; the moon, just rising blood-red above the hill-top, spoke to him of love. Not the love of a lifetime, not the love that will give and take, bear and forbear, thinking no ill, and enduring for all eternity; but of love-talk, of a woman's face against his, of gratified vanity perhaps, at all events of a love of possession. No, he knew in his inmost heart, his conscience told him, that he did not care for her as, in the event of his making her his wife, he felt she would have a right to expect.

Besides, there was another, and even more important, point to be considered. Was he worthy of a good woman's love? he, until lately an adventurer--a----No, no! If he were a man of honour he would go away; he would go out into the world again, and, in forgetting her, enable her to forget him. And yet the temptation to stay--to hear from her own lips that she loved him--was upon him, calling him in tenderest accents to remain. He sat and thought it out as dispa.s.sionately as he was able, and his final resolve was to go. In this case, at least, he would not think of himself, he would think only of what was best for her. Yes, he would go! Suddenly away down the jetty he heard the patter of shoe heels. His heart throbbed painfully. She was coming back. They came closer and closer. She appeared on the sky-line, and, descending the steps, took his hand to jump into the boat.

"I'm afraid you must have grown very tired of waiting for me."

"I'm very glad to see you, certainly; but I don't think I can say I'm tired. It is a beautiful evening. Look at that glorious moon. We shall have a perfect sail home."

He hoisted the canvas, and they pushed off. In spite of the resolve he had just made it was vastly pleasant to be seated beside her, to feel the pressure of her warm soft body against his on the little seat. There was a fair breeze, and the water bubbling under the boat's sharp bows was like tinkling music as they swept from the shadow of the pier into the broad moonlight. Again, for want of something to do, she put her hand into the water; and the drops from her fingers when she lifted them shone like silver. As if in contradiction of her affected unconcern, she was palpably nervous. Once he could almost have sworn he felt her tremble.

"You are not cold, I hope?"

"Oh, dear, no! What could make you think so?"

"I thought I felt you shiver."

"It was nothing. I am perfectly warm."

"All the same I shall put this spare sail over your knees--so."

He took a piece of canvas from behind him, and spread it round her. She made no attempt at resistance. In spite of her show of independence, there was something infinitely pleasant to her in being thus tended and cared for by this great strong man.

In five minutes they were pa.s.sing close under the nearest point of their own island. High cliffs rose above them, crowned with a wealth of vegetation. She looked up at them, and then turned to her companion.

"Mr. Ellison, do you know the story of that bluff?"

"No. I must plead guilty to not being aware that it possessed one. May I hear it?"

"It has a strange fascination for me--that place. I never pa.s.s it without thinking of the romance connected with it. Do you see that tall palm to the right there?"

"Yes."

"Well, under that palm is a grave; the resting-place of a man whom I can remember seeing very often when I was only a little child."

"What sort of a man?"

"Ah, that's a question a good many would have liked to have answered.

Though it's years ago, I can see him now as plainly as if it were but yesterday. He was very tall and very handsome. Possibly forty years old, though at first sight he looked more than that, for the reason that his hair and moustache were as white as snow. He lived in a hut on that bluff far away from everybody. In all the years he was there he was never known to cross the straits to the settlement, but once every three months he used to come down to our store for rations and two English letters. I believe we were the only souls he ever spoke to, and then he never said any more than was absolutely necessary. The pearlers used to call him the Hermit of the Bluff."

"Do you think he was quite sane?"

"I'm sure of it. I think now he must have been the victim of some great sorrow, or, perhaps, some man of family exiled from his country for no fault of his own."

"What makes you imagine that?"

"Why, because it was my father who found him lying lifeless on the floor of his hut. He had been dead some days and n.o.body any the wiser. Hoping to find something to tell him who he was, my father searched the hut, but without success. But when, however, he lifted the poor body, he caught a glimpse of something fastened round his neck. It was a large gold locket, with a crown or coronet upon the cover. Inside it was a photograph of some great lady--but though he recognised her, my father would never tell me her name--and a little slip of paper, on which was written these words: 'Semper fidelis: Thank G.o.d, I can forgive. It is our fate. Good-bye.' They buried him under the palm yonder and the locket with him."

"Poor wretch! Another victim of fate! I wonder who he could have been."

"That is more than anyone will ever know, until the last great Judgment Day. But, believe me, he is not the only one of that cla.s.s out here. I could tell you of half a dozen others that I remember. There was Bombay Pete; it was said he was a fashionable preacher in London, and was nearly made a bishop. He died--bewitched, he said--in a Kanaka's hut over yonder behind the settlement. Then there was the Gray Apollo--but who _he_ was n.o.body ever knew; at any rate he was the handsomest and most reckless man on the island until he was knifed in the Phillipines; and the man from New Guinea; and Sacramento d.i.c.k; and the Scholar; and John Garfitt, who turned out to be a lord. Oh, I could tell you of dozens of others. Poor miserable, miserable men."

"You have a sympathy for them, then?"

"Who could help it? I pity them from the bottom of my heart. Fancy their degradation. Fancy having been brought up in the enjoyment of every luxury, started with every advantage in life, and then to come out here to consort with all the riff-raff of the world and to die, cut off from kith and kin, in some hovel over yonder. It is too awful."

Ellison sighed. She looked at him, and then said very softly:

"Mr. Ellison, I do not want to pry into your secret, but is there no hope for you?"

He appeared not to have heard her. A great temptation was upon him. He was going away to-morrow: she would never see him again. She had evidently a romantic interest in these shattered lives--could he not allow himself the enjoyment of that sympathy just for a few brief hours?

Why not? Ah, yes, why not?

"Miss McCartney," he said, after a long pause, "do you know, while you were away to-night, and I was sitting waiting for you, I subjected myself to a severe cross-examination?"

"On what subject?"

"Partly yourself, partly myself."

"What sort of cross-examination do you mean, Mr. Ellison?"

"Well, that is rather a difficult question to answer, and for the following reason: In the first place, to tell you would necessitate my doing a thing I had made up my mind never to do again."