第54章

He then suddenly stammered out: "Ask my men what we went through. Why, sir" (to Wardlaw), "I can hardly believe that I am alive, and sit here talking to you about this cursed business. And nobody offers me a drop of anything."

Wardlaw poured him out a tumbler of wine. His brown hand trembled a little, and he gulped the wine down like water.

General Rolleston gave Mr. Wardlaw a look, and Wylie was dismissed. He slouched down the street all in a cold perspiration; but still clinging to his three thousand pounds, though small was now his hope of ever seeing it.

When he was gone General Rolleston paced that large and gloomy room in silence. Wardlaw eyed him with the greatest interest, but avoided speaking to him. At last he stopped short, and stood erect, as veterans halt, and pointed down at the chart.

"I'll start at once for that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace of my poor lost girl."

"Can you think of no better way than that?" said old Wardlaw, gently, and with a slight tone of reproach.

"No--not at this moment. Oh, yes, by the by, the _Greyhound_ and _Dreadnaught a_re going out to survey the islands of the Pacific. I have interest enough to get a berth in the _Greyhound."_

"What! go in a government ship! under the orders of a man, under the orders of another man, under the orders of a board. Why, if you heard our poor girl was alive upon a rock, the _Dreadnaught_ would be sure to run up a bunch of red-tape to the fore that moment to recall the _Greyhound,_ and the _Greyhound_ would go back. No," said he, rising suddenly, and confronting the general, and with the color mounting for once in his sallow face, "you sail in no bottom but one freighted by Wardlaw & Son, and the captain shall be under no orders but yours. We have bought the steam-sloop _Springbok,/I> seven hundred tons. I'll victual her for a year, man her well, and you shall go out in her in less than a week. I give you my hand on that."

They grasped hands.

But this sudden warmth and tenderness, coming from a man habitually cold, overpowered the stout general. "What, sir," he faltered; "your own son lies in danger, yet your heart goes so with me--such goodness--it is too much for me."

"No, no," faltered the merchant, affected in his turn; "it is nothing.

Your poor girl was coming home in that cursed ship to marry my son. Yes, he lies ill for love of her; God help him and me too; but you most of all. Don't, general; don't! We have got work to do; we must be brave, sir; brave, I say, and compose ourselves. Ah, my friend, you and I are of one age; and this is a heavy blow for us. And we are friends no more; it has made us brothers. She was to be my child as well as yours; well, now she _is_ my child, and our hearts they bleed together." At this, the truth must be told, the two stout old men embraced one another like two women, and cried together a little.

But that was soon over with such men as these. They sat together and plunged into the details of the expedition, and they talked themselves into hope.

In a week the _Springbok_ steamed down the Channel on an errand inspired by love, not reason; to cross one mighty ocean, and grope for a lost daughter in another.