Page:The Great Secret.djvu/61

Rh "Only for a moment, Adela, and then I shall take hold of your hand again."

"Are you sure of this, Philip? What if it be annihilation?"

"Comfort yourself, my child, we will meet again," he said, as he clasped her hand with his one hand, while he smoothed her hair with the other, and she appeared to be content.

Another half-hour passed with that deep silence all round them. The port-holes were open, and the soft sighing of the night breeze came through them. A gentle swell was on the sea, which lifted the inactive ship up and down softly and soothingly.

Just then a knock came to the locked saloon door, and the captain, seizing up a revolver, went towards it and opened it, admitting one person only, one of the foreign saloon passengers—a yellow-faced squat man. He was well-dressed, and yet like a workman, with a most sinister cast of face, yet bold enough, as he entered and looked about him.

"Good-night, capitan. Why locked doors to your passengers?"

"Your friends ought to know that," replied the captain sternly. "Do you come from them?"

"Yus; since you put it in that nice way, capitan. I am the ambassador; depending upon your honour as a gentleman."

"Oh, we won't harm you. What do they want?"

"Not much; only the ship, which the cause has need of," replied the ambassador, with a grin.

"Oh, indeed, the request is a modest one, as far as your usual demands; yet, what if I refuse?"

"We shall kill you within an hour's time, capitan, and then the ship will be ours."