Compound Interest.

Back to the Fire Again.—A Magnanimous Return.—Catching at Straws.—Two Total Strangers.—Purely a Question of Precedence.—"Hemmed in" and "Surrounded."—The Last Chance.

The Bank Manager looked across at Peter with an amused smile; he seemed quite friendly. Whether he was in Peter's cabin, or Peter in his, did not appear; and perhaps it was not of much consequence either way. If the cabin belonged to Mr. Perkins, he did not, at all events, appear to resent the intrusion.

"You seem rather put out about something," he said again, as Peter was still too short of breath for words.

"Oh, no," panted Peter, "it's nothing. There was so much bustle going on above, that I thought I'd come in here for a little quiet; that's all."

"Well," said the Manager, "I'm glad you looked in; for, as it happens, you're the very man I wanted to see. I daresay you're wondering why I'm putting on these things?"

Peter nodded his head, which was all he felt equal to.

"Why, I've just been having a talk with that old she-griffin from Melbourne. Perhaps you don't know that her brother is coming on board directly?"

"Oh yes, I do!" said Peter.

"Well, it seems she means to denounce me to him as the slanderer of her father. She may, if she chooses; my conscience is perfectly clear on that score. No one can bring anything of the sort home to me; and I've no doubt I shall soon satisfy him that I'm as innocent as an unborn babe. Still, I want you, as a respectable man and the only real friend I have on board, to come with me and be my witness that you never heard such a rumour from my lips; and besides, sir, we shall have an opportunity at last of seeing the unutterable scamp who has had the barefaced impudence to say I told him this precious story! She's going to produce him, sir; and if he dares to stand me out to my face—well, he'll know why I've put on these shoes! Come along; I can't let you off."

Peter dared not refuse, for fear of attracting his friend's suspicions. He could only trust to slipping away in the confusion; and so, unfastening the cabin-door, the Manager caught the unresisting Tourmalin tightly by the arm, and hurried him along the central passage and up the companion.

Even Miss Davenport would have been a welcome diversion at that moment; but she was not there to intercept him, and he reached the upper deck more dead than alive.

"Where's that old vixen now?" exclaimed the Manager, dropping Peter's arm. "Here, just stay where you are a minute, till I find her and her confounded brother!"

He bustled off, leaving Tourmalin by the davits, quite incapable of action of any kind in the presence of this new and awful dilemma. He had been spreading a cruel and unjustifiable slander against an irreproachable Colonial magnate, whose son was now at hand to demand reparation with a horsewhip. He could only propitiate him by denouncing Perkins as his informant, and if he did that he would be kicked from one end of the ship to the other with a spiked boot! This was Nemesis indeed, and it was Sophia who had insisted upon his exposing himself to it. What a fool he was not to fly back to that cabin, while he could!

He turned to flee, and as he did so a hand was passed softly through his arm.

"Not that way, Peter!" said Miss Tyrrell's voice.

A wild, faint hope came to him that he might be going to receive one of the back quarters of an hour. The caprices of the Time Cheques were such that it was quite possible he would be thrown back into an earlier interview. Little as he felt inclined for any social intercourse just then, he saw that it would afford him a brief interlude—would at least give him breathing-time before his troubles began again.

"I will go wherever you choose," he said; "I am in your hands."

"I came," she said, "to take you to her. She is asking for you."

"She?" said Peter. "For heaven's sake, who?"

"Why, Miss Pinceney, of course. I knew who it was directly I saw her face. Peter, is it true, as papa tells me, that I misunderstood you just now—that she is not engaged to Alfred?"

"Alfred? No!" he replied. "If she is engaged to anyone at all, I have strong grounds for supposing it's to me!"

"Then we must submit, that is all," said Miss Tyrrell. "But we do not know her decision yet; there is still hope!"

"Yes," he said, "there is hope still. Let us go to her; make haste!"

He meant what he said. Sophia could at least extricate him from a portion of his difficulties. Miss Tyrrell—magnanimous and unselfish girl that she was, in spite of her talent for misapprehension—was ready to resign him to a prior claim, if one was made. And Sophia was bound to claim him; for if the engagement between them had been broken off, he could not now be her husband, as he was. Even Time Cheques must recognise accomplished facts.

He followed her across the ship, turning down the very passage in which he had sat through more than one cheque with Miss Davenport; and on the opposite side he found Sophia standing, with her usual composure, waiting for his arrival.

She was so identically the same Sophia that he had left so lately, that he felt reassured. She, at least, could not be the dupe of all this. She had come—how, he did not trouble himself to think,—but she had come with the benevolent intention of saving him!

"How do you do, my love?" he began. "I—I thought I should see you here."

"You only see me here, Peter," she replied, in a voice that trembled slightly, in spite of her efforts to command it, "because I felt very strongly that it was my duty to put an end at the earliest moment to a situation which has become impossible!"

"I'm sure," said Peter, "it is quite time it was put an end to—it couldn't go on like this much longer."

"It shall not, if I can help it," she said. "Miss Tyrrell, pray don't go away; what I have to say concerns you too."

"No; don't go away, Miss Tyrrell," added Peter, who felt the most perfect confidence in Sophia's superior wisdom, and was now persuaded that somehow it was all going to be explained. "Sir William, will you kindly step this way too? Sir William Tyrrell—Miss Pinceney. Miss Pinceney has something to tell you which will make my position thoroughly clear."

"I have only to say," she said, "that your honourable and straightforward conduct, Peter, has touched me to the very heart. I feel that I am the only person to blame, for it was I who insisted upon your subjecting yourself to this test."

"It was," said Peter. "I told you something would happen—and it has!"

"I would never hold you to a union from which all love on your side had fled; do not think so, Peter. And now that I see my—my rival, I confess that I could expect no other result. So, dear Miss Tyrrell, I resign him to you freely—yes, cheerfully—for, by your womanly self-abnegation you have proved yourself the worthier. Take her, Peter; you have my full consent!"

"My dear young lady," said the Judge, deeply affected, "this is most noble of you! Allow me to shake you by the hand."

"I can't thank you, dear, dear Miss Pinceney!" sobbed his daughter. "Peter, tell her for me how we shall both bless and love her all our lives for this!"

Peter's brain reeled. Was this Sophia's notion of getting him out of a difficulty?

As he gazed distractedly around, his eyes became fixed and glazed with a new terror. A stalwart stranger, with a bushy red beard, was coming towards him, with a stout riding-whip in his right hand. By his side walked the Manager, from whose face all vestige of friendliness had vanished.

"As soon as you have quite finished your conversation with these ladies," said the Manager, with iron politeness, "this gentleman would be glad of a few moments with you; after which I shall request your attention to a little personal affair of my own. Don't let us hurry you, you know!"

"I—I won't," returned Peter, flurriedly; "but I'm rather busy just now: a little later, I—I shall be delighted."

As he stood there, he was aware that they had withdrawn to a bench some distance away, where they conferred with the elderly lady from Melbourne. He could feel their angry glare upon him, and it contributed to rob him of the little self-possession he had left.

"Sophia," he faltered piteously, "I say, this is too bad—it is, really! You can't mean to leave me in such a hole as this—do let's get home at once!"

Before she could make any reply to an appeal which seemed to astonish her considerably, a thin, bilious-looking man, with a face twitching with nervous excitement, a heavy black moustache, and haggard eyes, in which a red fire smouldered, appeared at the gangway and joined the group.

"I beg your pardon," he said, lifting his hat; "forgive me if I interrupt you, but my business is urgent—most urgent! Perhaps you could kindly inform me if there is a—a gentleman" (the word cost him a manifest struggle to pronounce)—"a gentleman on board of the name of Tourmalin? I have a little matter of business" (here his right hand stole to his breast-pocket) "to transact with him," he explained, with a sinister smile that caused Peter to give suddenly at the knees.

"It's that infernal Alfred!" he thought. "Now I am done for!"

"Why," said Miss Tyrrell, who was clinging affectionately to Peter's arm, "this is Mr. Tourmalin! You can speak to him now—here, if you choose. We have no secrets from one another—have we, Peter?"

"I have lately learnt," said the gloomy man, "that a certain Mr. Tourmalin has stolen from me the affection of one who was all heaven and earth to me!"

"Then it must be another Mr. Tourmalin," said Miss Tyrrell, "not this one; because—surely you do not need to be told that you have no rivalry to fear from him?" she broke off, with a blush of charming embarrassment.

Alfred's scowl distinctly relaxed, and Peter felt that, after all, this unfortunate misunderstanding on Miss Tyrrell's part might prove serviceable to him. Since Sophia, for reasons of her own, refused to assist him, he must accept any other help that offered itself.

"The best proof I can give you of my innocence," he said, "is to mention that I have the honour to be engaged to this lady."

He heard a stifled shriek from behind him as he made this assertion, and the next moment Miss Davenport, who must have come up in time to catch the last words, had burst into the centre of the group.

"It is not true!" she cried. "Alfred, you must not believe him!"

"Not true?" exclaimed Alfred, Sophia, Miss Tyrrell, and Sir William, in the same breath.

"No!" said Miss Davenport; "at least, if he has really engaged himself, it is within the last few minutes, and with the chivalrous intention of shielding me! Peter, I will not be shielded by such means. Our love is too precious to be publicly denied. I cannot suffer it; I will acknowledge it, though it costs me my life! You," she added, turning to Sophia,—"you can prove that I speak the truth. It was to you that I confided, that day we met on deck, the story of our fatal attachment."

"I really think you must be mistaken," said Sophia, coldly. "If you confided such a story to anybody, it could not have been to me; for, until a few minutes ago, I had never set foot upon this ship."

How Sophia could stand there and, remembering, as she must do, her recent appropriation of the Time Cheque, tell such a downright fib as this, passed Peter's comprehension. But, as her statement was in his favour so far as it went, he knew better than to contradict it.

"Whether it was you or not," insisted Miss Davenport, "it is he and no one else who rendered my engagement to Alfred utterly repugnant to me! Can you look at him now, and doubt me longer?"

"So, Peter," said Sophia severely, "you could not even be faithful to your unfaithfulness!"

Miss Tyrrell made no comment, but she dropped his arm as if it had scorched her fingers, whereupon Miss Davenport clung to it in her stead, to Peter's infinite dismay and confusion.

"He is faithful!" she cried. "It is only a mistaken sense of honour that made him apparently false. Yes, Alfred, what I wrote to you, and the postscript he added, is the simple truth. We cannot command our own hearts. Such love as I once had for you is dead—it died on the fatal day which brought him across my path. We met—we love; deal with us as you will! I would rather, ever so much rather, die with him than lose him now!"

Alfred was already beginning to fumble fiercely in his breast-pocket. Peter felt the time had arrived for plain speaking; he could not submit to be butchered under a ridiculous misapprehension of this kind.

"Listen to me!" he said eagerly, "before you do anything rash, or you may bitterly regret it afterwards. I do assure you that I am the victim—we are all the victims of a series of unfortunate cheques—I should say, mistakes. It's absurd to make me responsible for the irregular proceedings of a nonsensical Bank. If I had spent my time as I ought to have done at the time, instead of putting it out on deposit, I should never have dreamed of employing it in any kind of philandering!"

"That," said Sophia, "is undeniable: but you spent it as you ought not to have done!"

"Such a speech comes ill from you," he said, reproachfully, "after having expressly condoned the past; and, however I may have appeared to philander, I can conscientiously declare that my sentiments towards both of these young ladies—both, you understand—have been restricted to a respectful and—and merely friendly esteem.... Don't shoot, Alfred!... I thought that was quite understood on all sides. Only have a little more patience, Alfred, and I will undertake to convince even you that I could not for a moment have contemplated depriving you of the hand of this extremely charming and attractive lady, who will not let go my arm.... I—I am a married man!"

"Married!" shrieked Miss Davenport, cowering back.

"Married!" exclaimed Miss Tyrrell, as she hid her face upon her father's shoulder.

"Married!" shouted the Judge. "By heavens, sir, you shall account to me for this!"

"Married!" cried Sophia. "Oh, Peter, I was not prepared for this! When? Where?"

"When? Where?" he echoed. "You were not prepared for it? Perhaps you will ask me next who my wife is!"

"I shall not indeed," said Sophia, "for I have no longer the slightest curiosity on such a subject!"

Peter collapsed upon the nearest bench.

"Sophia?" he cried hoarsely, "why keep this up any longer? Surely it is gone far enough—you can't pretend you don't know!"

But while he spoke the words, he saw suddenly that his attempt to force her hand was hopeless: she was quite sincere in her surprise; she was the Sophia of six months ago, and no amount of explanation could ever make her comprehend what had happened since that time!

And here Alfred broke his silence.

"What you have just confessed," he said, "removes my last scruple. I might, for all I can tell, have stayed my hand and spared your life upon your promise to make Maud happy; for, in spite of her treatment of me, her happiness is still my first consideration. But now you have declared that impossible,—why, as soon as I can get this revolver out of my pocket—for it has stuck in the confounded lining—I will shoot you like a rabbit!"

"Sir William," cried Peter, "I appeal to you! You are the representative of Law and Order here. He is threatening a breach of the Peace—the Queen's Peace! I call upon you to interfere!"

"I am no advocate," said Sir William, with judicial calm, "for taking the law into one's own hands. I even express a hope that this gentleman will not carry out his avowed intention, at least until I have had time to withdraw, and I must not be understood to approve his action in any way. At the same time, I am distinctly of opinion that he has received sufficient provocation to excuse even such extreme measures, and that the fate he threatens will, if summary, at least be richly deserved."

"I think so too," said Sophia, "though it would be painful to be compelled to witness it!"

"Terrible!" agreed Miss Tyrrell. "Let us hide our eyes, dear!"

"Stay, Alfred!" Miss Davenport implored, "have some pity! Think—with all your faults, you are a keen sportsman—you would not shoot even a rabbit sitting! Give Mr. Tourmalin a start of a few seconds—let him have a run before you fire!"

All this time Alfred was still fumbling for and execrating the obstinate weapon.

"I decline to run!" Peter cried from his seat; he knew too well that he could not stir a limb. "Shoot me sitting, or not at all, but don't keep me waiting any longer!"

His prayer seemed likely to be granted, for Alfred had at last succeeded in extricating the revolver; but before he could take aim, the Bank Manager and the Melbourne man ran in and interposed.

"Hold on one minute, sir," they said; "we, too, have business with the gentleman on the seat there, and you will admit that it must be concluded before yours, if it is to be settled at all. We must really ask you to postpone your little affair until we have finished. We will not keep you waiting any longer than we can help."

The Judge, with an ostentatious indifference, had strolled away to the smoking-room, probably to avoid being called upon to decide so nice a point as this disputed precedence; his daughter, Miss Davenport, and Sophia had turned their backs, and, stopping their ears, were begging to be told when all was over.

Alfred was struggling to free his pistol-arm, which was firmly held by the other two men, and all three were talking at once in hot and argumentative support of their claims. As for Peter, he sat and looked on, glued to his seat by terror: if he had any preference among the disputants, he rather hoped that Alfred would be the person to gain his point.

All at once he saw Sophia turn round and, with her fingers still pressed to her ears, make energetic contortions of her lips, evidently for his benefit. After one or two repetitions, he made out the words she was voicelessly framing.

"Run for it!" he interpreted. "Quick ... while you can!"

With his habitual respect for her advice, he rose and, finding that the power of motion had suddenly returned, he did run for it; he slipped quietly round the corner and down the passage to the other side of the ship, where he hoped to reach the saloon-entrance, and eventually regain his cabin.

Unhappily for him, the grim lady from Melbourne had noted his flight and anticipated its object. Long before he got to the open doors, he saw her step out and bar the way; she had an open sunshade in her hand, which she was preparing to use as a butterfly net.

He turned and fled abruptly in the opposite direction, intending to cross the bridge which led aft to the second-class saloon deck, where he might find cover: but as he saw, on turning the corner, the Manager had already occupied the passage, Peter turned again and doubled back across the ship, making for the forecastle; but he was too late, for the Melbourne man was there before him, and cut off all hope of retreat in that quarter.

There was only one thing left now: he must take to the rigging, and accordingly the next moment, scarcely knowing how he came there, he was clambering up the shrouds for dear life!

Higher and higher he climbed, slipping and stumbling, and catching his unaccustomed feet in the ratlins at every step; and all the way he had a dismal conviction that as yet he had not nearly exhausted the cheque he had drawn. He must have at least another couple of hours to get through, not to mention the compound interest, which the Bank seemed characteristically enough to be paying first.

Still, if he could only stay quietly up aloft till his time was up, he might escape the worst yet. Surely it was a sufficient penalty for his folly to have embroiled himself with every creature he knew; to have been chivied about the deck of an ocean steamer by three violent men, each thirsting for his blood; and to be reduced to mount the rigging like an escaped monkey!

A few more steps and he was safe at last! Just above was a huge yard, flattened on the upper surface, with a partially furled sail, behind which he could crouch unseen; his hands were almost upon it, when a bronzed and bearded face appeared above the canvas—it was one of the English crew.

"Beg your pardon, sir," said the man, civilly enough, "but I shall 'ave fur to trouble you to go down agin, please. Capt'in's strick orders, sir. Passengers ain't allowed to amuse theirselves climbing the rigging!"

"My good man!" said Peter, between his pants, "do I look as if I was amusing myself? I am pursued, I tell you. As an honest, good-hearted British seaman—which I am sure you are,—I entreat you to give me a hand up, and hide me: it—it may be life or death for me!"

The man wavered; the desperate plight Peter was in seemed to arouse his compassion, as it well might.

"I could 'ide yer, I suppose, come to that," he said slowly; "but it's too late to think o' that now. Look below, sir!"

Peter glanced down between his feet, and saw two swarthy Lascars climbing the rigging like cats. Lower still, he had a bird's-eye view of the deck, about which his enemies were posted in readiness for his arrival: the Manager exhibiting his spiked boots to Sir William, who shook his head in mild deprecation; the old lady brandishing her sunshade in angry denunciation, while her brother flourished his horsewhip; and Alfred stood covering him with his revolver, prepared to pick him off the instant he came within range!

And Peter hung there by his hands—for his feet had slipped out of the ratlins—as helpless a target as any innocent bottle in a shooting-gallery, and the Lascars were getting nearer and nearer!

He could see their bilious eyeballs, and their teeth gleaming in their dusky faces. He felt a bony hand reaching for his ankles, and then a dizziness came over him: his grip upon the coarse, tarry cordage relaxed, and, shutting his eyes, he fell—down—down—down. Would the fall never come to an end? Would he never arrive?...