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"Pass, friend, and all's well!" said Vashti, with a light laugh, as she effected her entrance. Then, catching sight of the man confronting her, she caught at the curtain, and said, simply, "O-oh!" "Lord, bless my soul!" exclaimed Sir Ommaney, in a low voice, but fervently. "I I thought you were the Commandant," stammered Vashti, for once in this history taken thoroughly aback.
At last, on the 19th of June, at the famous seventy-third parallel, they doubled Cape Minto, which forms one of the extremities of Ommaney Bay; the brig entered Melville Bay, surnamed by Bolton Money Bay; the merry sailors joked about the name, and made Dr. Clawbonny laugh heartily.
"It seems a monstrous height to be swung in air, helpless as a babe. But Tregarthen says it can be done, and I am willing to trust him. If at the top you can rig up some kind of litter for me, and convey me home without noise ... I have a fancy, and it is also Miss Cara's, that we keep the main part of this mystery to ourselves. But who is the helper aloft there?" "Sir Ommaney Ward." "Hey?"
But will you put constraint upon yourself for a moment to forget these letters, to dismiss the personal question, and simply to resume our talk." "I will try," agreed the Commandant, after a painful pause. "But it will be hard; harder perhaps than you can understand. Honours have come to you deservedly, I admit " "And too late," Sir Ommaney again took him up.
Now the lodgings whither Sir Francis and Lady Ommaney had betaken themselves, when my mother had, so to speak, turned them out, had a balcony with an excellent view all along the quais, and thither the dear old lady invited Meg, Madame d'Aubepine, and me, to bring Gaspard, with Maurice and Armantine; and I saw by her face that the bouef gras was not all that there was for me to see.
Why, Tommy, your brains be all wool-gathered this mornin'! Can't you see that old Sir Ommaney is tellin' the cruiser to `carry on' as soon as she likes, and bid adoo to Spithead when she's weighed her anchor? See, too, sonny, the old Vict'ry and the Saint Vincent be now a-repeatin' the signal arter the Dook, the same as they did that first h'ist, jest now!"
After a minute's rest Vashti lowered herself over the western edge of the rock, at the same time warning them to follow with extreme caution; and so all three came to the ledge of the adit. But their business did not lie here. Indeed, in the darkness neither Sir Ommaney nor the Commandant observed the opening, and Vashti had no leisure to call their attention to it.
The Commandant did not understand; or perhaps he had not been listening intently. By tacit consent, the pair bent their steps towards the slope of Garrison Hill. "Also," Sir Ommaney resumed, "the Admiral at Plymouth added a word of advice, to take advantage of this spell of weather and make the passage at once. No doubt he had a professional distrust of a soldier's stomach.
On the other hand, and eagerly as he jumped at every question, he could not help perceiving that these batteries of which he had been so proud of which in recollection he was yet so proud were to Sir Ommaney but obsolete toys. This visitor of his, this friend of his gallant youth, had moved with the times, and the times had carried him to an infinite distance, beyond all understanding.
Sir Ommaney, stepping ashore, stretched out a hand; but she disregarded it, as she disregarded the Commandant's, held out to take the painter and make fast. "Thank you" she stooped, apparently groping among the bottom-boards. "I will moor the boat myself. But wait: I have something for each of you to carry." In the darkness she passed up a double tackle and a coil of rope.
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