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"Luggage first," said Barebone, lapsing into the curtness of the sea. "Come along. Let us make haste." They stumbled on board as best they could, and were guided to a safe place amidships by Loo, who had thrown a spare sail on the bottom of the boat. "As low as you can," he said. "Crouch down. Cover yourselves with this. Right over your heads." "But why?" grumbled Marie.
Once or twice he took Barebone by the arm and led him to the other end of the room, for he was always the centre of the liveliest group and led the laughter there. "Oh! but he is charming, my dear," more than one guest whispered to Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, as they took their departure. "He will do he will do," the men said with a new light of hope in their grave faces.
Clubbe was busy enough throughout the day at the old slip-way, where "The Last Hope" was under repair the last ship, it appeared likely, that the rotten timbers could support or the old, old shipwrights mend. Loo Barebone was no less regular in his attendance at the river-side, and worked all day, on deck or in the rigging, at leisurely sail-making or neat seizing of a worn rope.
"All right, my boy," answered Colville, cheerfully. "I am off to France to-morrow morning." The Major shook his head wisely as if in approval of a course of conduct savouring of that prudence which is the better part of valour, glanced at Loo Barebone, and waited in vain for an invitation to take a vacant chair near at hand. "Still in the south of France, I suppose?"
"The Vicomte de Castel Aunet who is so clever a mechanician has promised to bring his tools," said Monsieur de Gemosac. "He will open it for us even if he find it necessary to break the locket." So the thing went round the room until it came to Loo Barebone. "I have seen it before," he said. "I think I remember seeing it long ago when I was a little child."
"You never really supposed you were the man, did you?" asked Colville, with a ready smile. He was brave, at all events, for he took the only course left to him with a sublime assurance. Barebone looked across the candles at the face which smiled, and smiled. "That is what I thought," he answered, with a queer laugh.
"And nothing in Farlingford?" inquired Barebone, gaily; but he turned, as he spoke, and glanced once more at Miriam Liston as if in some dim way the question could not be answered by any other. She was absorbed in her book again. The print must indeed have been large and clear, for the twilight was fading fast. She looked up and met his glance with direct and steady eyes of a clear grey.
He evinced no surprise on seeing Barebone, but shook hands with him with a little nod of the head, which somehow indicated that they had business together. He accepted the chair brought forward by Marvin and warmed his hands at the fire, in no hurry, it would appear, to state the reason for this unceremonious call. After all, Marvin was his oldest friend and Miriam his ward.
Barebone obeyed mechanically, leading the way through the bushes to the kitchen-garden and over an iron fencing on to the open marsh. This stretched inland for two miles without a hedge or other fence but the sunken dykes which intersected it across and across.
Suddenly Barebone rose to his feet, hauled in hand over hand, and when the dinghy was near enough, leaped across two yards of water to her gunwale. The Captain heard the thud of his feet on the thwart, and looking back over his shoulder saw and understood in a flash of thought. But even then he did not understand that Loo was aught else but a landsman half-recovered from sea-sickness.
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