Liardet gasped and choked, and the little Belgian naturalist tripped down and wiped away the dark stream that began to trickle down the grizzled beard, and then he and Russell, the mate, laid him down again.
"Don't go," whispered the Belgian to the other, "he sink ver' fast now." The closed eyelids opened a little and looked up through the skylight at the brown face of Tommy the Tongan, and then Russell gave the dying skipper brandy and water. Then, with fast-fading eyes on the picture in porcelain, he asked Russell what course he was keeping.
"As near south as can be," said the mate, "but with this breeze we could soon make the Great Barrier, and there's always hope, cap'n. Let me keep her away to the westward a bit, and who knows but you may----"
For answer the grizzled Liardet held out his hand, shook his head faintly, and muttering, "I hope to God it'll come on a Hell of a Calm for a Month of Sundays," he turned his face to the port and went over _his_ Great Barrier.
***** Every one was "_so_ sorry for poor little Mrs. Liardet." She was so young to be a widow, "and having no children, my dear, the poor creature must have felt the shock the more keenly." Thus the local gabble of the acquaintances and friends of the pretty widow. And she laughed softly to herself that she couldn't feel overwhelmed with grief at her widowhood. "He hadn't a thought above making money," she said to herself--oh, Nell Liardet, for whom did he desire to make it!--"and yet never could make it." And then she thought of Russell, and smiled again. His hand had trembled when it held hers. Surely he did not come so often to see her merely to talk of rough, old Dave Liardet. A man whom she had only tolerated--never loved. And then, Russell was a big, handsome man; and she liked big, handsome men. Also, he was captain now. And, of course, when he had told her of that rich patch of pearl-shell, that he alone knew of at Caille Harbour, in which was a small fortune, and had looked so intently into her blue eyes, he had meant that it was for her. "Yes," and she smiled again, "I'm sure he loves me. But he's terribly slow; and although I do believe that blonde young widows look 'fetching' in black, I'm getting sick of it, and wish he'd marry me to-morrow."