"If I have offended----" I began.
"I may as well tell you," she interrupted me again, "that I have no
personal liking or disliking for anything you have said or done in my
presence. But I have heard that about you which will make me have no
inclination for your company."
"And I shall ask you to tell me what that is," I retorted with
mounting indignation. "It is not fair that you should accept the
slurs of an enemy behind my back."
She hesitated.
"That may be so," she admitted, "but you will be willing to answer me
two questions?"
"Surely."
"You are Captain Ormerod, formerly chamberlain to King James II?"
"Yes."
"And you not long ago abandoned the King's service and fruitlessly
sought a pardon in London?"
"Yes."
I can not very well describe the scorn of voice and manner with which
she addressed me.
"That is enough for me," she said. "You are a traitor, a deserter,
proven out of your own mouth."
"But----"
"No, sir; there is naught you can say would interest me. I should
despise you none the less had you deserted in the same circumstances
to my own side. It makes it no less culpable that you deserted from
my side because our fortunes were at low ebb. And indeed I think it
will be a sure sign there is a God in heaven that such a black
traitor as you will be, should be scorned even by the wicked men of
the usurper in London."
"But you shall hear me," I protested. "This is absurd, what you say.
You have taken two bare statements of fact and twisted into them the
implications skilfully made by a personal enemy. You----"
"Last night, sir," she said cuttingly, withdrawing the folds of her
cloak so that they might not touch me, "you played upon my sympathies
with your tale of exile and a brother buried in the Clan Donald
country, and I was all for sympathy with you and sorrow for your
sorrow. You as much as told me you were one of the Good People. You
let me deceive myself, after you had deceived me first. Oh, you will
have acted unspeakably!"
"What I told you was true!"
"It could never have been."
"I swear it was. I was out in the '19; I fled to Scotland with my
brother; he died and was buried there; I escaped with the remnants of
the expedition; I am an exile at this moment."
"An exile! Phaugh! Think on the honest men can truly say that in
their misfortune this day! And you--I could weep for the shame that
your dead brother and the mother that bore you will be feeling as
they look down upon you!"
With that she was gone, and I was left cursing--cursing de Veulle,
whose treacherous tongue had planted the distorted shreds of truth in
her mind; cursing Murray, who must have stood by and listened to it
all, smugly amused; cursing my cousin who had put me in such a
plight, after winning my inheritance; cursing the men and women at
St. Germain who repaid years of sacrifice and ungrudging loyalty with
such canards; cursing Juggins for having embarked me upon this ship
with the girl; cursing myself for getting into such a false position;
cursing the girl----
But no. Common sense came to my rescue then. There was something
unaccountably fine about her attitude, something I should never have
thought to uncover in Murray's daughter, however beautiful and
attractive she might be. There was devotion for you, faithfulness to
a lost cause, the single-minded truthfulness which only a good woman
can possess.
Heir indignation was the index to her personality. By it I might
know that she was really worth while, that to win her respect must be
an achievement for any man.
And that brought a new thought into my mind. Could the two men she
was with have her respect? Could she respect her father, Murray?
Aye, perhaps; for if he labored secretly in the Jacobite interest
she, with her flaming, misdirected loyalty to the Stuarts, would
excuse his deceptions and crimes, if only they brought back her King
to the throne.
I was familiar with the way men and women of her persuasion ignored
the well-being of their country, apart from their King. They could
see no difference between the two. What did it matter if France
profited by the issue, so long as James replaced George?
This brought me to de Veulle. Surely she could not respect him! If
she knew what I knew-- But manifestly she, who had never been out of
Scotland before, could know nothing of his career in Paris.
And he had a way with him, there could be no denial of that. He was
a handsome devil, with the flair which appeals to all women, good and
bad. Aye, he might win her regard for a time; but I was prepared to
stake all that she would unmask him in the end.
The twilight faded rapidly, and I found myself with no appetite for
the crowded main cabin, where de Veulle and Murray played piquet, or
my stuffy berth. I strolled the deck, immersed in thought. There
was so much to think about. The episode with this girl, whose name
even I did not know, had brought into vivid opposition the events of
the past and the uncertain future which lay before me.
I conned over what Juggins had told me, memorized anew many of the
messages he had entrusted to me, speculated upon the possible turn of
affairs. I planned in some vague way to win a fortune in that
unknown New World ahead of me, and with the proceeds in one hand and
a pardon in the other, return and reclaim Foxcroft from those
abominable Hampshire cousins.
With chin cupped in hand I leaned upon the starboard rail in the
black well of shadow which was formed by the overhang of the
forecastle, and the towering piles of canvas that clothed the
foremast. Somewhere beyond the wastes of watery darkness that veiled
my eyes lay England, the home which had disowned me. I----
Without any warning a huge arm was twisted around my shoulders and a
hand so huge that my teeth could make no impression in it was clamped
down over my mouth. Another arm encircled my waist. My arms were
pinned to my sides. My legs kicked feebly at a muscular body which
pressed me against the bulwark. Fighting back with all my strength,
I was nevertheless lifted gradually from the deck and shoved slowly
across the flat level of the fife-rail.
Do what I might, I could not resist the pressure of those tremendous
arms which seemed to have a reach and a power twice those of my own.
I gasped for breath as they squeezed my lungs--and in gasping I
sensed a queer taint in the air, a musky odor which I did not at once
associate with the seamen or any one else on board the ship.
It was no use. I could not resist. The snakelike arms mastered me.
One shifted swiftly to a grip on my legs. I was whirled into the air
and dropped clear of the railing--falling, falling, until the cold
waters engulfed me.