The Wings of the Morning Part 52

The two men looked into each other eyes. They smiled. How could they resist the contagion of her sunny nature?

"I have been thinking over what you said to me just now, Anstruther,"

said the s.h.i.+powner slowly.

"Oh!" cried Iris. "Have you two been talking secrets behind my back?"

"It is no secret to you--my little girl--" Her father's voice lingered on the phrase. "When we are on sh.o.r.e, Robert, I will explain matters to you more fully. Just now I wish only to tell you that where Iris has given her heart I will not refuse her hand."

"You darling old dad! And is that what all the mystery was about?"

She took his face between her hands and kissed him. Lord Ventnor, wondering at this effusiveness, strolled forward.

"What has happened, Miss Deane?" he inquired. "Have you just discovered what an excellent parent you possess?"

The baronet laughed, almost hysterically. "'Pon my honor," he cried, "you could not have hit upon a happier explanation."

His lords.h.i.+p was not quite satisfied.

"I suppose you will take Iris to Smith's Hotel?" he said with cool impudence.

Iris answered him.

"Yes. My father has just asked Robert to come with us--by inference, that is. Where are you going?"

The adroit use of her lover's Christian name goaded his lords.h.i.+p to sudden heat.

"Indeed!" he snarled. "Sir Arthur Deane has evidently decided a good many things during the last hour."

"Yes," was the s.h.i.+powner's quiet retort. "I have decided that my daughter's happiness should be the chief consideration of my remaining years. All else must give way to it."

The Earl's swarthy face grew sallow with fury. His eyes blazed, and there was a tense vibrato in his voice as he said--

"Then I must congratulate you, Miss Deane. You are fated to endure adventures. Having escaped from the melodramatic perils of Rainbow Island you are destined to experience another variety of s.h.i.+pwreck here."

He left them. Not a word had Robert spoken throughout the unexpected scene. His heart was throbbing with a tremulous joy, and his lords.h.i.+p's sneers were lost on him. But he could not fail to note the malignant purpose of the parting sentence.

In his quietly masterful way he placed his hand on the baronet's shoulder.

"What did Lord Ventnor mean?" he asked.

Sir Arthur Deane answered, with a calm smile--"It is difficult to talk openly at this moment. Wait until we reach the hotel."

The news flew fast through the settlement that H.M.S. _Orient_ had returned from her long search for the _Sirdar_. The wars.h.i.+p occupied her usual anchorage, and a boat was lowered to take off the pa.s.sengers. Lieutenant Playdon went ash.o.r.e with them. A feeling of consideration for Anstruther prevented any arrangements being made for subsequent meetings. Once their courteous duty was ended, the officers of the _Orient_ could not give him any further social recognition.

Lord Ventnor was aware of this fact and endeavored to turn it to advantage.

"By the way, Fitzroy," he called out to the commander as he prepared to descend the gangway, "I want you, and any others not detained by duty, to come and dine with me tonight."

Captain Fitzroy answered blandly--"It is very good of you to ask us, but I fear I cannot make any definite arrangements until I learn what orders are awaiting me here."

"Oh, certainly. Come if you can, eh?"

"Yes; suppose we leave it at that."

It was a polite but decided rebuff. It in no way tended to sweeten Lord Ventnor's temper, which was further exasperated when he hurt his s.h.i.+n against one of Robert's disreputable-looking tins, with its acc.u.mulation of debris.

The boat swung off into the tideway. Her progress sh.o.r.ewards was watched by a small knot of people, mostly loungers and coolies. Among them, however, were two persons who had driven rapidly to the landing-place when the arrival of the _Orient_ was reported. One bore all the distinguis.h.i.+ng marks of the army officer of high rank, but the other was unmistakably a globetrotter. Only in Piccadilly could he have purchased his wondrous _sola topi_, or pith helmet--with its imitation _puggri_ neatly frilled and puckered--and no tailor who ever carried his goose through the Exile's Gate would have fas.h.i.+oned his expensive garments. But the old gentleman made no pretence that he could "hear the East a-callin'." He swore impartially at the climate, the place, and its inhabitants. At this instant he was in a state of wild excitement. He was very tall, very stout, exceedingly red-faced.

Any budding medico who understood the pre-eminence enjoyed by _aq.

ad_ in a prescription, would have diagnosed him as a first-rate subject for apoplexy.

Producing a tremendous telescope, he vainly endeavored to balance it on the shoulder of a native servant.

"Can't you stand still, you blithering idiot!" he shouted, after futile attempts to focus the advancing boat, "or shall I steady you by a clout over the ear?"

His companion, the army man, was looking through a pair of field-gla.s.ses.

"By Jove!" he cried, "I can see Sir Arthur Deane, and a girl who looks like his daughter. There's that infernal scamp, Ventnor, too."

The big man brushed the servant out of his way, and brandished the telescope as though it were a bludgeon.

"The dirty beggar! He drove my lad to misery and death, yet he has come back safe and sound. Wait till I meet him. I'll--"

"Now, Anstruther! Remember your promise. I will deal with Lord Ventnor.

My vengeance has first claim. What! By the jumping Moses, I do believe--Yes. It is. Anstruther! Your nephew is sitting next to the girl!"

The telescope fell on the stones with a crash. The giant's rubicund face suddenly blanched. He leaned on his friend for support.

"You are not mistaken," he almost whimpered. "Look again, for G.o.d's sake, man. Make sure before you speak. Tell me! Tell me!"

"Calm yourself, Anstruther. It is Robert, as sure as I'm alive. Don't you think I know him, my poor disgraced friend, whom I, like all the rest, cast off in his hour of trouble? But I had some excuse. There!

There! I didn't mean that, old fellow. Robert himself will be the last man to blame either of us. Who could have suspected that two people--one of them, G.o.d help me! my wife--would concoct such a h.e.l.lish plot!"

The boat glided gracefully alongside the steps of the quay, and Playdon sprang ash.o.r.e to help Iris to alight. What happened immediately afterwards can best be told in his own words, as he retailed the story to an appreciative audience in the ward-room.

"We had just landed," he said, "and some of the crew were pus.h.i.+ng the coolies out of the way, when two men jumped down the steps, and a most fiendish row sprang up. That is, there was no dispute or wrangling, but one chap, who, it turned out, was Colonel Costobell, grabbed Ventnor by the s.h.i.+rt front, and threatened to smash his face in if he didn't listen then and there to what he had to say. I really thought about interfering, until I heard Colonel Costobell's opening words. After that I would gladly have seen the beggar chucked into the harbor. We never liked him, did we?"

"Ask no questions, Pompey, but go ahead with the yarn," growled the first lieutenant.

"Well, it seems that Mrs. Costobell is dead. She got enteric a week after the _Orient_ sailed, and was a goner in four days. Before she died she owned up."

He paused, with a base eye to effect. Not a man moved a muscle.

"All right," he cried. "I will make no more false starts. Mrs.

Costobell begged her husband's forgiveness for her treatment of him, and confessed that she and Lord Ventnor planned the affair for which Anstruther was tried by court-martial. It must have been a beastly business, for Costobell was sweating with rage, though his words were icy enough. And you ought to have seen Ventnor's face when he heard of the depositions, sworn to and signed by Mrs. Costobell and by several Chinese servants whom he bribed to give false evidence. He promised to marry Mrs. Costobell if her husband died, or, in any event, to bring about a divorce when the Hong Kong affair had blown over. Then she learnt that he was after Miss Iris, and there is no doubt her fury helped on the fever. Costobell said that, for his wife's sake, he would have kept the wretched thing secret, but he was compelled to clear Anstruther's name, especially as he came across the other old Johnnie--"

"Pompey, you are incoherent with excitement. Who is 'the other old Johnnie'?" asked the first luff severely.

"Didn't I tell you? Why, Anstruther's uncle, of course, a heavy old swell with just a touch of Yorks.h.i.+re in his tongue. I gathered that he disinherited his nephew when the news of the court-martial reached him.