HUNSTON'S PERIL--BLACK VISIONS--A DREAM OF VENGEANCE--AN
UNKNOWN DANGER TO THE "WESTWARD HO!"
An explanation of the foregoing is scarcely necessary, we believe.
You bear in mind, of course, that Hunston was utterly ignorant of the
miraculous escape of his destined victims--young Jack and Harry
Girdwood.
You must bear in mind, too, that although you, friend reader, may give
a shrewd guess at the truth, Hunston had not the remotest notion of
where he was.
This said, you may perhaps understand the fearful effect of this waking
vision upon the guilty wretch.
Bear in mind that he had been lurking in a close and stifling hold,
into which no single ray of sunlight penetrated, for three whole
days--three long nights.
Unwelcome conscience tapped and would not be deceived.
A man with the guilt of Hunston upon his mind could not afford to be
alone--nay, nor in the dark either.
* * * * *
When he recovered consciousness, his first sensations were of burning
in the throat, and opening his eyes, he found himself being cared
tenderly for by one of the sailors who had brought him there.
"Come, come, I say, mister," said the honest tar, who had had a bit of
a fright on finding Hunston's condition, "this won't do, you know."
"I am better now," murmured Hunston, faintly.
"You are a little, precious little. You will have to come on deck now,
and chance what the skipper says about the job."
"Yes, yes; I will," said Hunston, waking up.
"He can't kill us."
"Nor eat me," said the stowaway, with a sickly smile.
"Not he."
"Any thing is better than remaining longer here. I believe I should die
if I did."
"Then up you come at once, as sure as my name's Jack Tiller."
"Tell me, my friend," Hunston said; "whither are we bound?"
"For the Red Sea."
"Pheugh! A long cruise?"
"Well, yes."
"And then we are going further yet, and to travel on until we touch the
coast of Australy."
"The deuce!"
"That's it, sir."
"What's the name of the vessel?"
The sailor laughed.
"What makes you grin?"
"Why, I was wondering, messmate, why you never asked that before."
"My thoughts were too full of getting away."
"Ah, of course."
"What is her name?"
"The 'Westward Ho!' She was formerly the 'Seamew,' and the owner
rechristened her."
"What's his name?"
"The skipper's? Why, captain John Willoughby."
"The owner's?"
"Mr. Jack Harkaway."
Had a thunderbolt dropped down in the hold between them, Hunston could
not have been more astonished.
"What?"
His tone startled the sailor.
He saw it, and he did his utmost to calm himself.
"Who did you say?"
"Who?" echoed the sailor. "Why, who but Mr. Jack Harkaway? He's well
known enough. Surely you don't mean for to go for to say as you never
heard of him?"
"I--I think I have heard the name," muttered Hunston.
"Think! Well, so do I, unless you've been shut up in solitary
confinement for the last fifteen years. Blow me tight, but the man that
hadn't heard of Mr. Jack Harkaway, would be a living curiosity."
"Jack Harkaway the owner of this ship!" Hunston murmured, like one in a
dream, and relapsed into silence once more.
No wonder that he had seen that vision.
No wonder that the spirit of the murdered boy, young Jack, should hover
about the vessel where his destroyer was hiding--in which his father,
mother, and all that he held dear in life were journeying.
The situation grew graver than ever.
It was truly an alarming plight, and the more he thought it over, the
more desperate did he become.
"Jack Tiller," said he.
"Your honour."
"I'll stay where I am."
"Oh, very good," replied the tar; "mum's the word. I thought your berth
wasn't over cheerful."
Jack Tiller gave a hoist at his slacks, and with something between a
sigh and a grunt, he wheeled round and went on deck.
* * * * *
"If I could only see my way out of this, I should like better than any
thing to fire the ship," said Hunston, to himself; "fire it and watch
it close by, chuckling at them while they roasted. What a glorious
return it would be for them. By the powers, it is about the only thing
I could do to wipe them all off at once, all, all! Jack, Harvey, Emily,
that Yankee braggart--curse him!"
And Hunston sat brooding in the black and evil-smelling hold day after
day.
The only companion of his solitude being his own dark thoughts, his
vicious resolves for vengeance.
"It is my own cursed ill-luck," he would say to himself again and
again, "to be beholden to this Harkaway for my life. Why, even now, he
has saved me again, saved me in spite of himself. That's the merry side
of the question."
Merry as it was, it never made him smile.
One dreadful thought filled his poor mind.
One fearful fancy took such complete possession of him, that day and
night he was brooding on it.
"Once let me see a clear landing," he would mutter to himself, "once
let me see my way straight to get ashore in a safe place, and then I'll
make the 'Westward Ho!' too hot to hold them. Too hot--ah, yes, a
precious deal too hot to hold them, that I would; for I would make up
such a blaze as they would never be able to extinguish."
And so he began devoting himself to the arrangements for this
villainous purpose.
What is more, he got all his plans mapped out, all ready for the
execution of this most diabolical deed.
Little did the happy passengers in the "Westward Ho!" dream of the
fatal danger threatening them.
They would not have enjoyed so many sweet slumbers, could they have had
the faintest inkling of the truth--if they had suspected that near them
was the villain Hunston, following them with a deadly purpose of
revenge, which seemed to have increased year by year ever since the
schooldays of Jack Harkaway.