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Updated: June 20, 2025
Gregory sprang to his feet and burst it open with his powerful shoulders, crushing Horble against the bunk, who, pistol in hand, fired at him point blank. The bullet went wide, and there was a sound of shattering glass. Gregory's hands clenched themselves on Horble's, and the revolver twisted this way and that under the double grasp.
What's done's done, and it's a sorry game to come back too late and insult a man who never did you no harm." "Oh!" said Gregory. "If you choose," continued Horble in his tone of wounded reasonableness, "you can make a power of mischief between me and Madge.
Gregory was conscious of a belaying pin being whipped out of sight, and in an instant he was roused and tense, his nostrils vibrating with a sense of danger. The two men stared at each other, and then Horble backed into the stateroom, remarking with furtive insincerity, "There's a power of dirt to windward!" This said, the door went shut behind him.
He had never known how passionately he had loved Madge Blanchard until he had lost her; until after that wild quarrel on Nonootch, when her father had called him a slaver to his face, and they had parted on either side in anger; until he had beaten up from westward to find her the month-old wife of Joe Horble.
He had more than a mind to get to sea, but the gloom to windward daunted him, and he ordered out the kedge instead and bade the mate strip the awnings off her. By Jove! if things grew blacker he'd house his topmasts. Then he looked again at the little Edelweiss, and tried to keep back the thought of Horble sitting there below with Madge. He had to see her. He was mad to see her.
"Captain Cole," said Horble, calmly but with a quiver of his lip, "we'll take another drink and then we'll say good-by." "I'm not going till I see Madge," said Gregory. Horble began to tremble. "It's for Madge to decide," added Gregory. "Decide what?" demanded Horble in a husky stutter. "Between you and me, old fellow," said Gregory.
Would Horble have the grit to order him off the ship? No; the infernal coward was getting out the gin a bottle of square-face and two glasses. "Say when," said Horble. "When," said Gregory. Horble tipped the bottle into his own glass. A second mate's grog! One could see what the fellow drank. "Here's luck," said Gregory. "Drink hearty," said Horble.
"Captain Cole," said Horble, "Madge has told me how near it was a go between you and her, and how, if you hadn't cleared out so sudden the way you did, she would have married you in spite of old Blanchard. But when you went away like that you left the field clear, and you mustn't bear me no malice for having stepped in and taken your leavings.
What a fool he had been! He was roused by the sound of Horble's footsteps down the ladder. With his head leaning on his hand, he looked at the big naked feet feeling for the steps, then at the uncouth clothes as they gradually appeared, then at the fat, weak, frightened face of the man himself. He grew sick at the sight of him. Would Horble strike him?
Her husband's shame was hers, and it was somehow plain that Horble had been at fault before. She never thought to doubt Greg's word, though his callousness revolted her. "What is it you want to say?" she said at last in an altered voice. "To ask you to forgive me." "For what? for taking advantage of Joe's one failing?" "No; for leaving you the way I did."
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