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Updated: June 25, 2025
To them he fully unfolded his plan, minutely explaining not only his own but also their part in it; after which he gave them his final instructions, and then taking both of Gaunt's magazine rifles in his hand, and thrusting a brace of revolvers into his belt having previously loaded each weapon most carefully with his own hands he quietly lowered the outer ladder, cautioning his companions to draw it up again after him, and stepped briskly but noiselessly out through the long dew-laden grass in the direction of the ship-yard.
A good workman, he averaged out an income of perhaps eighteen shillings a week, counting the two shillings' worth of vegetables that he grew. His erring daughter washed for two old ladies in a bungalow, so that with old Gaunt's five shillings from the parish, the total resources of this family of five, including two small boys at school, was seven and twenty shillings a week. Quite a sum!
Except a beautiful woman, I don't know that there's a sweeter sight than a powerful, sea-going steam yacht, with the sun glinting on her bright brass-work, and a uniformed crew jumping to the sound of the boatswain's whistle. "The poor young man's ship's come home," I said. "It must be Lady Gaunt's Sapphire," said Verna. "With the American colours astern?" I said.
Gaunt's lean face had a pitiful look, sometimes, the look of the child he was in his heart, hungry, wistful, as though he sought for something, which you might have, perhaps. He looked at Dode, the child of the man that he had killed. She did not know that. When she came in, he thought of shaking hands with her, as he used to do. That could never be again, never. The man that he had killed?
The two or three were quickly joined by others, who emerged silently from the pathway through the bush until the watchers were able to count a dozen in all. "Now, sir, what do you say? Shall we open fire upon them, you and I, with Mr Gaunt's repeaters, and Nicholls with his rifle? We could bowl over at least half of them before they could get away," eagerly whispered Manners in Henderson's ear.
Gaunt's story of his journey to the wreck, with the vivid description he gave of the fertility and general productiveness of their island-home, greatly raised the spirits of the listeners; and the sanguine way in which he spoke of their ability to build the little vessel which he contemplated, caused them already to feel as if their days on the island were numbered.
Now promise me to say naught to him, but just this: 'Rose Gaunt's mother, she lies in Carlisle jail, to be tried for her life for murdering you. She begs of you not to let her die publicly upon the scaffold; but quietly at home, of her broken heart."
Many a fond youth and trusting maiden have visited their lowly tomb, and many a tear, fresh from the heart, has dropped upon the sod covering the ill-fated lovers. Behold the grim and giant fabric, rebuilt and strengthened by "Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster!" Within one of its turrets called John of Gaunt's Chair, and at eventide, stands a lady under the care of a jailer.
"That is so," he answered; "and a narrow escape he has had; for if he had fought as he desired he might well have been in my place this day." "In Elizabeth Gaunt's rather!" I answered. "He would himself have died at the stake before he could have been brought to betray the woman that had helped him." "You had a poorer opinion of him a short while ago." "I knew not the world. I knew not men.
Jasper Gaunt's head drooped, and he stared down at the papers on the desk before him, nor did he move, only his long, white fingers began to tap softly upon his chair-arms, one after the other. "I will pay you forty thousand pounds," said Barnabas. Then, all in one movement as it seemed, Gaunt had risen and turned to the window, and stood there awhile with his back to the room.
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