Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/596

3, 1860.]

‘That is your man,’ somebody said to me.

“I made a rush towards him, but he turned his back upon me, and shook hands heartily with a gentleman, who had also been waiting for him. They were still in close and apparently confidential communication, when the orders were again given, and I knew by the bustle on board that the ship’s minutes in port were numbered.

‘Fool,’ at last I said to myself, ‘thrust the letter into his hand, let who will be nigh.’

“No sooner said than done.

“As his eye caught the writing, he stopped in what he was saying, and glared upon me with a look of horror.

‘Allow me,’ urged his companion, whose voice at once confirmed my previous suspicions; ‘it is but a trick to unman you. Let me read it, and if’

“But Mr. Stenthorpe waived him off, saying:

‘No, it is her faithlessness sends me to meet death on the battle-field, and this shall go with me, though it be the record of her guilt.’

“And he opened the envelope, and read.

“No sooner did the gentleman—not claret coloured now—perceive this, than with a glance of the deadliest scorn at me, he abruptly quitted him and the ship.

“Mr. Stenthorpe then beckoned me to him, and I told him all I knew. He went after the captain, and when he came back, told me to follow him, and we dropped in a gig that lay alongside, and were rowed ashore. On our road to London he asked me no end of questions, how she looked, and what sort of person was with her. And when I told him I was certain it was the same gentleman who had just left him, I never in my life saw anything like his face. It was like a dead man’s.

‘Traitors!’ said he. ‘Double-dyed, infamous scoundrels! Ah, my own true-hearted Fanny! For a little paltry wealth, they would have sent us both to our graves. And you have saved us, my fine fellow.’

“And he grasped my hand, and turned his head, as if to look out at the carriage window.

“He was not long putting matters to rights; and one morning that I called by appointment in Eaton Square, my master marched me straight into the breakfast-room, to receive the thanks of the lady herself.

“Though she looked so beautiful, I should have known her anywhere; and as she stood up and held out her hand, the outline of her figure reminded me of some allusions in her letter, and I thanked God in my heart, that perhaps under Him I had been instrumental in saving three lives.

“Ever since then I have been in Mr. Stenthorpe’s service. And a lucky thing it was for me, I fell in the way of the claret-coloured gentleman.”

I looked at the man, and became a convert.

“Decidedly,” I thought, "Stenthorpe is right. Peu de moyens, beaucoup d’effet. No wonder he won’t hear a word against his pock-marked coachman.”.