The Queen's Cup by G. A. Henty (best business books of all time txt) 📗

perfectly respectful, perfectly polite. Sometimes for days not a word would be exchanged between us; sometimes he would come up and talk, or rather, try to talk, for it was seldom that he got any answer from me. As a rule I sat in my deck chair with Anna beside me, and he sat on the other side of the deck, or walked up and down, smoking or talking with that man who was with him.

"So it went on till the afternoon when we saw you. As I told you, he made us go down at once. I could see that he was furiously angry and excited. The steward came to our cabin early in the morning, and said that Mr. Carthew requested that we would dress and come up at once. As I was anxious to know what was going on, I did so; and he said when we came on deck, 'I am very sorry, Miss Greendale, but I have to ask you to go on shore with us at once.'

"I had no idea where we were, save that it was somewhere in the island of San Domingo; but I was ready enough to go ashore, thinking that I might see some white people that I could appeal to.

"I did speak to some negroes as we landed, but he said, 'It is of no use your speaking to them, Miss Greendale, for none of them understands any language but his own.'

"I saw that they did not understand me, at any rate. I was frightened when I saw that four of the sailors were going with us, and that a dozen of the blacks, armed with muskets, also formed round us. I said that I would not go afoot, but Carthew answered:

"'It would pain me greatly were I obliged to take such a step; but if you will not go, there is no course open to me but to have you carried. I am sorry that it should be so, but for various reasons it is imperative that you should take up your abode on shore for the present.'

"Seeing that it was useless to resist, I started with him. A short distance on, two blacks came up with the horses, which had evidently been sent for. We mounted, and were taken up among the hills to the place where you found us. Every mile that we went I grew more frightened, for it seemed to me that it was infinitely worse being in his power up in those hills, than on board his yacht, where something might happen by which I might be released from him. Those huts you saw had been built beforehand, so that he had evidently been preparing to take us there if there should be any reason for leaving the yacht. There was bedding and a couple of chairs and a table in ours.

"In the morning, while still speaking politely, he made it evident to me that he considered he could take a stronger tone than before.

"'I assure you, Miss Greendale,' he said, 'that this poor hut is but a temporary affair. I will shortly have a more comfortable one erected for you. You see, your residence here is likely to be a long one, unless you change your mind. Pray do not nourish any idea that you can someday escape me. It is out of the question; and certainly no white man is ever likely to come to this valley, nor is any negro, except those who live in this village. Its head is an Obi man, whose will is law to the negroes. Their belief in his power is unlimited, and I believe that they imagine that he could slay them with the look of his eye, or turn them into frogs or toads by his magic power. I pray you to think the matter over seriously. Why should you waste your life here You did not always regard me as so hateful; and the love that I bear you is unchangeable. Even could you, months or years hence, make your escape, which I regard as impossible, what would your position be if you returned to England? What story would you have to tell? It might be a true one, but would it be believed?'

"'I have my maid, sir,' I said, passionately, 'who would confirm my report of what I have suffered.'

"'No doubt she would,' he said quietly, 'but a maid's testimony as to her mistress's doings does not go for very much. I endeavoured to make the voyage, which I foresaw might be a long one, pleasant to you by requesting you to bring her with you, and I believe that ladies who elope not unfrequently take their maids with them. But we need not discuss that. This valley will be your home, Miss Greendale, until you consent to leave it as my wife. I do not say that I shall always share your solitude here. I shall cruise about, and may even for a time return to England, but that will in no way alter your position. I have been in communication with the Obi gentleman since I first put into the bay, and he has arranged to take charge of your safety while I am away. He is not a pleasant man to look at, and I have no doubt that he is an unmitigated scoundrel—but his powers are unlimited. If he ordered his followers to offer you and your maid as sacrifices to his fetish, they would carry out his orders, not only willingly, but joyfully. He is a gentleman who, like his class, has a keen eye to the main chance, and will, I doubt not, take every precaution to prevent a source of considerable income from escaping him.'

"'You understand,' he went on, in a different manner, 'I do not wish to threaten you—very far from it. I have endeavoured from the time that you set foot on board to make you as comfortable as possible, and to abstain from thrusting myself upon you in the slightest degree, and I shall always pursue the same course. But please understand that nothing will shake my resolution. It will pain me deeply to have to keep you in a place like this, but keep you I must until you consent to be mine. You must see yourself the hopelessness, as well as the folly, of holding out. On the one side is a life wasted here, on the other you will be the wife of a man who loves you above all things; who has risked everything by the step that he has taken, and who, when you consent, will devote his life to your happiness. You will be restored to your friends and to your position, and nought will be known, except that we made a runaway match, as many have done before us. Do not answer now. At any rate I will remain here for a couple of months, and by the end of that time you may see that the alternative is not so terrible a one.'

"Then, without another word, he turned and walked away; and nothing further passed between us until in the afternoon, when you so suddenly arrived."

"Thank God, he behaved better than I should have given him credit for," Frank said, when she had finished. "He must have felt absolutely certain that there was no chance whatever of your rescue, and that in time you would be forced to accept him, or he would hardly have refrained from pushing his suit more urgently. His calculations were well made, and if we had not noticed that brigantine at Cowes, and I had not had the luck to come upon some of his crew and pick up his track, he might have been successful."

"You don't think that I should ever have consented to marry him?" Bertha said, indignantly.

"I am sure that such a thought never entered your head, Bertha; but you cannot tell what the effect of a hopeless captivity would have had upon you. The fellow had judged you well, and he saw that the attitude of respect he adopted would afford him a far better chance of winning you, than roughness or threats would do. But he might have resorted to them afterwards, and you were so wholly and absolutely in his power, that you would almost have been driven to accept the alternative and become his wife."

She shook her head decidedly.

"I would have killed him first," she said. "I suppose some girls would say, 'I would have killed myself;' but I should not have thought of that—at any rate not until I had failed to kill him. Every woman has the same right to defend herself that a man has, and I should have no more felt that I was to blame, if I had killed him, than you would do when you killed a man who had done you no individual harm, in battle."

"We only want mamma here," she said a little later, as she took her seat in a deck chair, "to complete the illusion that we are sailing along somewhere on the Devonshire coast. The hills are higher and more wooded, but the general idea is the same. I suppose I ought to feel it very shocking, cruising about with you, without anyone but Anna with me; but somehow it does not feel so."

"No wonder, dear. You see, we have been looking forward to doing exactly the same thing in the spring."

"I think we had better not talk about that now," she said, flushing. "I intend to make believe, till we get to England, that mamma is down below, and that I may be called at any moment. How long shall we be before we are there?"

"I cannot say, Bertha. I shall have a talk with Hawkins, presently, as to what course we had better take. It may be best to sail to Bermuda. If we find a mail steamer about to start from there, we might go home in it, and get there a fortnight earlier than we should do in the yacht, perhaps more. However, that we can talk over. I can see there may be difficulties, but undoubtedly the sooner you are home the better. You see, we are well in November now.

"What day is it?" he reflected.

"I have lost all count, Frank."

He consulted a pocketbook.

"Today is the twenty-first of November. I should think that if we get favourable winds, we might make Bermuda in a week—ten days at the outside; and if we could catch a steamer a day or two after getting there, you might be able to spend your Christmas at Greendale."

"That would be very nice. The difficulty would be, that I might afterwards meet some of the people who were with us on the steamer."

"It would not be likely," he said. "Still, we can talk it over. At any rate, from the Bermudas we can send a letter to your mother, and set her mind at rest."

The captain and Purvis, consulting the book of sailing directions, came to the conclusion that the passage via the Bermudas would be distinctly the best and shortest. The wind was abeam and steady, and with all sail set the Osprey maintained a speed of nine knots an hour until Bermuda was in sight. They were still undecided as to whether they had better go home by the mail, but it was settled for them by their finding, on entering the port, that the steamer had touched there the day before and gone on the same evening, and that it was not probable that any other steamer would be sailing for England for another ten days.

They stopped only long enough to lay in a store of fresh provisions and water, of which the supply was now beginning to run very short. Indeed, had not the wind been so steady, all hands would have been placed on half rations of water.

Bertha did not land. She was nervously afraid of meeting anyone who might recognise her afterwards, and six hours after entering the port the Osprey was again under way. The wind, as is usual at Barbadoes, was blowing from the southwest; and it held with them the whole way home, so that after a remarkably quick run they dropped anchor off Southampton on the fifteenth of December. Frank had already made all arrangements with the captain to lay up the Osprey at once.

"I shall want her out again in the first week in April, so that she will not be long in winter quarters."

On landing, Frank despatched a telegram to Lady Greendale:

"Returned all safe and well. Just starting for town. Shall be with you about six o'clock."

The train was punctual, and five minutes before six Frank arrived with Bertha at Lady Greendale's. He had already told Bertha that he should not come in.

"It is much better that you should be alone with her for a time. She will have innumerable questions