But he emerged only in part from his shelter. "So Jean Lafitte an' me,
we looked it up in the book; an' it says where the heartless jade is
brought before the pirut chief, 'How now, fair one!' says he, an' he
bends on her the piercin' gaze o' his iggle eye: 'how now, wouldst
spurn me suit?' The fair captive she bends her head an' stands before
him unable to encounter his piercin' gaze, an' for some moments a deep
silence prevails----"
"Jimmy!" I heard a clear voice calling along the deck. No answer, and
Jimmy raised a hand to command silence of me also.
"Jimme-e-e-e!" It was Helena's voice, and nearer along the rail.
"Here's the fudges--now where can the little nuisance have gone! Jim!"
"Here I am, Auntie," replied the little nuisance, as she now
approached the door of our cabin; and he brushed past me and started
not aft but toward the bows. "An' there you are!" he shouted over
his shoulder in cryptic speech, whether to me or to his Auntie Helen I
could not say.
She stood now in such position near my door that neither of us could
avoid the other without open rudeness. I looked at her gravely and she
at me, her eyes wide, her lips silent for a time. Silently also, I
swung the cabin door wide and stood back for her to pass.
"You have sent for me?" she said at last, still standing as she was. A
faint smile--part in humor, part in timidity, part, it seemed suddenly
to me, wistful; and all just a trifle pathetic--stirred her lips.
"'I sent my soul through the Invisible,'" said I; and stepped within
and quite aside for her to pass.
"Jimmy told the biggest lie in all his career," said I. She would have
sprung back.
"--And the greatest truth ever told in all the world. Come in, Helena
Emory. Come into my quiet home. Already, as you know, you have come
into my heart."
"I am not used to going into a gentleman's--quarters," said she: but
her foot was on the shallow stair.
"It is common to three gentlemen of the ship's company, Helena Emory,"
said I, "and we have no better place to receive our friends."
She now was in the room. I closed the door, and sprung the catch.
"At last," said I, "you are in my power!" And I bent upon her the
piercing gaze of my eagle eye.