Thalassa stopped abruptly, as though to leave on his listener's mind an impression of that furtive departure on a dark whispering sea beneath a blood-red moon.
"You got back to the mainland?" queried Charles, as he remained silent.
"Ay--and to England. Afore we got there Turold had persuaded himself that Remington slipped off the ridge accidental, and that he missed him when he fired."
"Perhaps his conscience pricked him. Go on."
"There's nowt much more to tell. Turold got me my share of the money, and then we parted. He offered to invest it for me, but I wasn't going to trust no banks--not I. It took me two years to waste it on gambling and women. Then I took to sea again. That lasted another year. Then I found myself in 'Frisco, where I shipped in a four-masted barque and come home round the Horn. I was pretty sick of the sea after two bad goes of rheumatic fever, so I made up my mind to hunt up Turold. I found him after a while. He didn't seem best pleased to see me at first, but he said I could stay till he had time to think out what he could do for me. That was the beginning of it. We never parted again, him and me, until he was carried out of yon house feet first. We got used to each other's ways, and I was worth all he paid me because I saved him worry and expense. He was all for saving, in those days. Married he was too, to a little timid thing of a girl who was in fear and trembling of him. 'Twas a black day for her when she married that headstrong stubborn devil. 'Mr.' Thalassa she always called me, poor woman. I married a maid-servant they had. That was Turold's idea--he thought by that way he could get his household looked after very cheaply by the pair of us. I wasn't keen on marrying, but it didn't make much odds one way or the other, for no living woman, wife or no wife, would have kept me in England if I'd wanted to get out. As it happened, I never did. I stayed on, going from place to place where they went--where Turold took us."
"Whom did my uncle marry?" asked Charles.
"You might a' guessed that. 'Twas the girl t'other had cut him out of. I thought the masterful devil'd get her when Remington was out of the way, but I asked him once straight out, and he said yes, it was the same girl. She was a pretty timid little thing in those days, but I don't know why they was both so mad after her. However, there it was."