u know already, "here
have we sailed twelve thousand miles at Ruth Bellenden's order, and how
does she receive us? Why, with a nod she might give a neighbour going
by in the street----"

"They not being on speaking terms except in church," put in Peter
Bligh.

"Or she wishing him to get on with his business," said Mister Jacob,
"and not to gossip when there was work to do."

"Be that as it may," I ran on, "the facts are as plain to me as eight
bells for noon. Ruth Bellenden's married to a foreigner who's next door
to a madman. Why, look at it--what was the only word she had the time
or the chance to say? 'For God's sake, come back, Jasper Begg,' says
she. And what am I going to do upon that, gentlemen? Why, I'm going
back, so help me heaven, this very night to learn her trouble."

"And to bring her aboard where she could tell it on a fair course, so
to speak. You'll do that, sir?"

"The night will show what I shall do, Mister Jacob. Was there ever such
a story? A man to marry the best creature that ever put on a pretty
bonnet, and to carry her to a god-forsaken shore like this! And to
ill-treat her there! Aye, that's it. If ever a woman's eyes spoke to
me of hard treatment, it was Ruth Bellenden's this morning. She's some
trouble, lads, some dreadful trouble. She doesn't even speak of it to
me. The yellow boy I've made mention of stood by her all the time. We
talked like two that pass by on the ocean. Who'll gainsay that it was
an unnatural thing? No mortal man can, with reason!"

"Aye, there's precious little reason in it, by what I make out,
captain. You'll know more when the young lady's aboard here----"

"And the yellow boy's head has a bump on the top of it, like the knob
what used to hang down from my mother's chandelay--but that's idle
talking. What time do you put her about to go ashore, sir?"

I was glad to see them coming to it like this, and I fell to the plan
without further parley.

"A fair question and a fair answer," said I; "this ship goes about at
eight bells, Peter. To Mister Jacob here I trust the safety of the good
fellows who go ashore with me. If we can bring the mistress aboard
to-night, well and good, we've done the best day's work we ever set our
hands to. If not, that work must rest until tomorrow night, or the
night after or the night after that. Eight days from now if it happens
that nothing is heard from the land and no news of us, well, the course
is plain. In that case it will b