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As long as she remained, she declares that we two would have continued to quarrel; and I suppose that she was right, for when she was gone we fell at once into a sort of confidentiality. Northmour stared after her as she went away over the sand-hill "She is the only woman in the world!" he exclaimed with an oath. "Look at her action."
I made some light rejoinder, but it was with half my heart; for the circumstance had impressed me. A yard or two before the gate, on a patch of smooth turf, we set down the dispatch box; and Northmour waved a white handkerchief over his head. Nothing replied.
Northmour was at my mercy; I arranged a good practical jest, though I knew well that my neighbour was not the man to jest with in security; and, chuckling beforehand over its success, took my place among the elders at the edge of the wood, whence I could command the door of the pavilion.
I, for my part, leaped at this opportunity for a little further light. "See here, Northmour," said I; "we are all in a tight place, are we not?" "I believe you, my boy," he answered, looking me in the eyes, and with great emphasis. "We have all hell upon us, that's the truth. You may believe me or not, but I'm afraid of my life." "Tell me one thing," said I. "What are they after, these Italians?
I made a bargain for missy's hand, and I mean to have it too." "That, by the way," said I. "I understand. But how will Mr. Huddlestone take my intrusion?" "Leave that to Clara," returned Northmour. I could have struck him in the face for his coarse familiarity; but I respected the truce, as, I am bound to say, did Northmour, and so long as the danger continued not a cloud arose in our relation.
I felt that I could stand to be shot at every day and all day long, with such marks of solicitude for a reward; and I continued to reassure her, with the tenderest caresses and in complete forgetfulness of our situation, till the voice of Northmour recalled me to myself. "An air-gun," he said. "They wish to make no noise." I put Clara aside, and looked at him.
The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in circular notes payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it out, counted it, enclosed it once more in a despatch-box belonging to Northmour, and prepared a letter in Italian which he tied to the handle.
A few dark spots, more or less, on the uneven expanse were not to be identified; they might be crouching men, they might be shadows; it was impossible to be sure. "Thank God," said Northmour, "Aggie is not coming to-night." Aggie was the name of the old nurse; he had not thought of her till now; but that he should think of her at all, was a trait that surprised me in the man.
He had already twice wounded me on the scalp; and it is to the consequent loss of blood that I am tempted to attribute the sudden clearness of my mind. I caught him by the wrist. "Northmour," I remember saying, "you can kill me afterwards. Let us first attend to Clara." He was at that moment uppermost.
The old woman resumed her preparations; although the other shutters remained closed, I could see a glimmer going to and fro about the house; and a gush of sparks from one chimney after another soon told me that the fires were being kindled. Northmour and his guests, I was now persuaded, would come ashore as soon as there was water on the floe.
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