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He knelt down and held his shaking hands to the flames. Some one handed him a bottle, but he turned first and gave it the Marquis de Gemosac, who was shaking all over like one far gone in a palsy. Sea Andrew and the coast-guard captain were persuading Captain Clubbe to quit the beach, but he only answered them roughly in monosyllables. "My place is here till all are safe," he said. "Let me lie."
"She's through, she's through!" cried some one. And the boat rode for a brief minute head to wind before she turned southward. There were only three on the thwarts Loo Barebone and two others. The group now broke up and straggled up toward the fire. One man was being supported, and could scarcely walk. It was Captain Clubbe, hatless, his grey hair plastered across his head by salt water.
For his mother had been a Clubbe, own cousin, and, as gossips whispered, once the sweetheart of Captain Clubbe himself and daughter of Seth Clubbe of Maiden's Grave, one of the largest farmers on the Marsh. "It cannot be for no particular purpose that the boy has been created so different from any about him," Captain Clubbe muttered, reflectively, as he thought of Dormer Colville's words.
"Before we go any further, I think I may take it upon myself to let you into the Marquis's confidence. It is about an inheritance, Captain. A great inheritance and well, that young fellow may well be the man. He may be born to greater things than a seafaring life, Captain." "I don't want any marquis to tell me that," answered Clubbe, with his slow judicial smile.
For his mother had been a Clubbe, own cousin, and, as gossips whispered, once the sweetheart of Captain Clubbe himself and daughter of Seth Clubbe of Maiden's Grave, one of the largest farmers on the Marsh. "It cannot be for no particular purpose that the boy has been created so different from any about him," Captain Clubbe muttered, reflectively, as he thought of Dormer Colville's words.
As Clubbe understood this, and nodded in acquiescence, there only remained to them to draw the cork and light their cigars. "Not much to tell," said Clubbe, guardedly. "But what there is, is no secret, so far as I know. It has not been told because it was known long ago, and has been forgotten since. The man's dead and buried, and there's an end of him."
And I I had forgotten all about them." He threw out his arms in a gesture of gay contempt; for even in the dark he could not refrain from adding to the meaning of mere words a hundred-fold by the help of his lean hands and mobile face. "I have heard of it, of course," she admitted, "from several people. But I have heard most from Captain Clubbe. He takes it more seriously than you do.
Colville and Monsieur de Gemosac were on the quay in the afternoon at high tide when "The Last Hope" was warped on to the slip-way. All Farlingford was there too, and Captain Clubbe carried out the difficult task with hardly any words at all from a corner of the jetty, with Loo Barebone on board as second in command.
He said that the water had been pumped into her so as to waterlog her; and it was his belief that she had not been abandoned many minutes, that the crew were hanging about somewhere near in a boat waiting to see if we sighted her and put men on board." Mr. Dormer Colville was attending to the claret, and pressed Captain Clubbe by a gesture of the hand to empty his glass.
Clubbe was looking straight in front of him. He turned in his disconcerting, monumental way and looked at his questioner, who had imitated with a perfect ingenuousness his own brief pause before the word mother. Colville smiled pleasantly at him. "I tell you frankly, Captain," he said, "it would suit me better if she wasn't the mother."
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