E. W. Hornung: Dead Men Tell No Tales

CHAPTER 2: THE MYSTERIOUS CARGO (continued)

Her pale lips parted. Her great eyes shone. Another instant, and she had told me that which I would have given all but life itself to know. But in that tick of time a quick step came behind me, and the light went out of the sweet face upturned to mine.

"I cannot! I must not! Here is - that man!"

Senhor Santos was all smiles and rings of pale-blue smoke.

"You will be cut off, friend Cole," said he. "The fire is spreading."

"Let it spread!" I cried, gazing my very soul into the young girl's eyes. "We have not finished our conversation.

"We have!" said she, with sudden decision. "Go - go - for my sake - for your own sake - go at once!"

She gave me her hand. I merely clasped it. And so I left her at the rail-ah, heaven! how often we had argued on that very spot! So I left her, with the greatest effort of all my life (but one); and yet in passing, full as my heart was of love and self, I could not but lay a hand on poor Ready's shoulders.

"God bless you, old boy!" I said to him.

He turned a white face that gave me half an instant's pause.

"It's all over with me this time," he said. "But, I say, I was right about the cargo?"

And I heard a chuckle as I reached the ladder; but Ready was no longer in my mind; even Eva was driven out of it, as I stood aghast on the top-most rung.