"No," she cried, "I hope you will die!" He turned away.
He turned back to her, downcast and silent.
"Remember," she said with sweet relenting, "that wherever thou goest, however many the years that may divide us, however wide the waters or the land, I shall be here waiting for thee, here in this house of our happiness; and if I die before thou comest here thou wilt find my grave."
"Tehea," he said, "as God sees me, some day I shall return!"
She took his hands and looked up into his face with such poignant longing and tenderness, that Jack's comrades, already uncomfortable enough, were quite overborne by the scene. Tough old Hatch snuffled audibly, and Brady could hardly speak.
"Come, come, lad," he cried huskily, "you mustn't keep us longer!"
Jack unclasped the girl's hands and suffered himself to be led away by his comrades. Stumbling and falling against one another in the dark, they made shift to find the uncertain path, Winterslea, in the lead, coo-eeing like a bushfellow for them to follow. Little by little they gained the sleeping village, and pressed on to the beach beyond, where their boat was already afloat on the incoming tide. They took their places without a word and pulled out in the direction of the ship. In the pass, rising and falling in the heavy swell, they burned a blue light, which the _Dauntless_ answered with another, and ran up a masthead lantern to guide them. A few minutes later they clambered up the ladder, the boat was hoisted in, and the boatswain's whistle was rousing the watch on deck:
By morning the island had sunk behind them, and standing on the dizzy main-royal yard with one arm round the mast, Jack could make out nothing but a little cloud on the horizon.
At sixty, John Garrard was a post captain, a Knight Commander of the Bath, and within a year of receiving flag rank and the command of a fleet. His career had been more than distinguished, and he had won his way to the front as much by his fine personal qualities as by his invariable good judgment and high professional attainments. He had earned the character of a man who could be trusted in situations involving tact, temper, and diplomatic skill; and no captain in the navy was more confidently ordered to those scenes of international tension, which, in spite of statesmen, so often arise in some distant place to menace the peace of the world.