A Hero of Romance Part 40

"Did you hear my nephew's voice? He had no idea he spoke so loud; he was forgetting where we were."

The man advanced still closer.

"What's the matter with you, boy?"

Quite unconsciously the captain unb.u.t.toned his overcoat, and his hand strayed to the pocket at the top.

"No--nothing," stammered Bertie.

"Nothing! I don't know what you call nothing! I should think you was being murdered, hollering out like that. Why don't you go down to the cabin and go to sleep?"

The captain drew the man aside.

"My nephew is a little excitable at times," he said, and tapped his forehead. "He is best away from the cabin. He is better alone up here in the fresh air with me."

The man, a weather-beaten sailor, with an unkempt grey beard, looked him straight in the face.

"Do you mean he's cracked?"

"Well, we don't call it by that name. He's excitable--not quite himself at times. You had better pay no heed to him; he has one of his fits on him to-night--the journey has excited him."

"Poor young feller!"

And the sailor turned to look at the boy. The captain slipped something into his hand. The man touched his hat and went away, looking at the piece of money as he went. And the man and the boy were left alone again.

Bertie, on the seat, clutched the rails as he had done before. The captain, standing in front, looked down at him.

"There's more in you than meets the eye; though, considering you pretend to have a turn for humour, one would have thought you would have been quicker to understand a joke. I say nothing of the noise you made, but you were wise not to answer that fellow's impertinent question. Your presence of mind saved you from accidental contact with the waters, but nothing could have saved you from my six-shooter. You can lie down again. You need have no fear of another accident; your screeching has made that fellow, and probably his comrades, too inquisitive to make it worth one's while to venture that. But when it comes to the question of letting your tongue wag too freely, nothing can save you from my revolver--mark that. It will be then a case of you or I. If you have made up your mind to spoil me, I will spoil you, my little friend. I say you can lie down."

Bertie lay down; and again the captain resumed his pacing to and fro, keeping watch, as it were, over his young prisoner.

The boy fell asleep. The reaction which followed the short sharp struggle beguiled him, and he slept. And oddly enough he slept the sleep of peace. And more than once the captain, pausing in his solitary vigil, bent over the sleeping boy, and looked down at him.

"The young beggar's actually smiling."

And in fact a smile did flit across the sleeper's face. Perhaps he was dreaming of his mother.

"Ran away for fun, did he? Yet the youngster isn't quite a fool. Pity it should be a case of he or I, but self-preservation is Nature's first law! That was a headline in my copy-books unless I greatly err."

The captain lit a fresh cigar, and continued his patrol. What did he think of? A hopeless past and a hopeless future? G.o.d forgive him!

for such as he there is no forgiveness to be had from men. That self-preservation, which is Nature's first law, is a law which cuts both ways. Honest men must destroy the Captain Loftuses, or they will be themselves destroyed.

The morning dawned; the day returned to the world. Still the boy slept on. At last the captain woke him. He got up, as if bewildered, and rubbed his eyes.

"Well, nephew mine, are you going to sleep for ever? If so, I'm sorry that I woke you. Jump up and come with me."

His "uncle" led the way into the cabin. They were preparing breakfast; the pa.s.sengers were falling to. The night had been so tranquil that not one had suffered from sea-sickness, and appet.i.te had come with the morning. A trained eye, looking at the fleecy clouds which were peeping over the horizon, would have prophesied a change, and that rough weather was at hand. But the day had dawned in splendour, and so far the morning was as tranquil as the night had been. So those pa.s.sengers who were going through to Jersey sat down with light hearts to breakfast.

The captain and Bertie joined them. That his "uncle" had no present intention of starving him was plain, for he was allowed a hearty meal of whatever took his fancy.

And while they were at breakfast the _Ella_ was brought up alongside the jetty, St. Peter's Port, Guernsey.

Chapter XX

EXIT CAPTAIN TOM

When they returned to the deck the boat was preparing to continue her journey. The fruit vendors--and with what delicious fruit the Guernsey men board the Jersey boats!--were preparing to take their leave, and those pa.s.sengers who had gone to stretch their legs with a saunter on the jetty were returning to the steamer.

The rest of the voyage was uneventful. Jersey is not very far away from Guernsey, and for a considerable part of the distance the pa.s.sengers were in sight of land. The breeze began to freshen, and as they steamed round Jersey towards St. Heliers it began to dawn upon not a few that enough of this sort of thing was as good as a feast.

There is such a very striking difference between steaming over a tranquil sea and being tossed and tumbled among boisterous waves. It was fortunate they were so near their journey's end. Several of the travellers were congratulating themselves that, when they reached dry land, they would be able to boast that they had voyaged from Southampton to Jersey without experiencing a single qualm. Had the journey been prolonged much further, that boast would have been cruelly knocked on the head. When they drew up beside the pier at St.

Heliers, coming events, as it were, had already cast their shadows before. They were saved just in the nick of time.

Bertie and the captain were among the first on sh.o.r.e; and, not unnaturally, the young gentleman supposed that their journeying was at an end. But he was wrong.

"Step out! We have no time to lose! We have to catch another boat, which is due to start."

Bertie stepped out. He wondered if the other boat was to take them back to England. Did the captain mean to pa.s.s the rest of his life in voyaging to and fro?

The disappointed flymen, to whom the arrival of the mail-boat is the great event of the St. Heliers day, let them pa.s.s. The hotel and boarding-house touters touted, so far as they were concerned, in vain.

The captain gave no heed to their solicitations. He evidently knew his way about, for he walked quickly down the jetty, turned unhesitatingly to the left when he reached the bottom, crossed the harbour, and down the jetty again upon the other side. About half-way down was a fussy little steamer which was making ready to start.

"Here you are! Jump on board!"

If Bertie did not exactly jump, he at any rate got on board.

What the boat was Bertie knew not, nor whither it was going. Compared to the _Ella_, which they had just quitted, it was so small a craft that he scarcely thought it could be going back the way the mail had come.

As a matter of fact it was not.

Two or three times a week a fussy little steamer pa.s.ses to and fro between Jersey and France. The two French ports at which it touches are St. Malo and St. Brieuc. One journey it takes to St. Malo, the next to St. Brieuc. On this occasion it was about to voyage to St.

Brieuc.

St. Brieuc, as some people may not know, is the chief town of the department of Cotes-du-Nord, in Brittany--about as unpretending a chief town as one could find. That Captain Loftus had some preconceived end in view, and had not started on a wild-goose chase, not, as might have at first appeared, going hither and thither as his fancy swayed him, seemed plain.

A more roundabout route to France he could scarcely have chosen. Had he simply desired to reach the Continent, fast steamers which pa.s.sed from Southampton to Havre in little less than half the time which the journey had already occupied, were at his disposal. Very many people, some of them constant travellers, are ignorant of the fact that a little steamer is constantly plying between Jersey and Brittany. It is dependent on the tides for its time of departure. Only in the local papers are the hours advertised. Captain Loftus must have been pretty well posted on the matter to have been aware that on this particular day the little steamer, _La Commerce_, would be starting for St.

Brieuc about the time the mail-boat entered Jersey.

He must have had some particular object in making for that remote corner of Breton France. No sooner did the boat enter the little harbour than he made a dash for the railway station.

Bertie seemed to have pa.s.sed into another world. He had not the faintest notion where he was. He was not even sure that they had reached Jersey. He heard strange tongues sounding in his ears; saw strange costumes before his eyes. In his then state of bewilderment he would have been quite ready to believe anybody who might have chosen to tell him that he had arrived in Timbuctoo.

Some light was thrown upon the subject when they reached the station.

The captain took some money out of his pocket and held it out to Bertie.

"Go and ask for the tickets," he said.