The boats of the _Wanderer_ took the place at the landing-stage vacated by the boats of the _Sea-mew_. A burst of cheering among the outer ranks of the crowd announced the arrival of the commander of the expedition on the scene. Captain Helding appeared, looking right and left for his first lieutenant.
Finding Crayford with his wife, the captain made his apologies for interfering, with his best grace.
"Give him up to his professional duties for one minute, Mrs.
Crayford, and you shall have him back again for half an hour. The Arctic expedition is to blame, my dear lady--not the captain--for parting man and wife. In Crayford's place, I should have left it to the bachelors to find the Northwest Passage, and have stopped at home with you!"
Excusing himself in those bluntly complimentary terms, Captain Helding drew the lieutenant aside a few steps, accidentally taking a direction that led the two officers close to the place at which Clara was standing. Both the captain and the lieutenant were too completely absorbed in their professional business to notice her. Neither the one nor the other had the faintest suspicion that she could and did hear every word of the talk that passed between them.
"You received my note this morning?" the captain began.
"Certainly, Captain Helding, or I should have been on board the ship before this."
"I am going on board myself at once," the captain proceeded, "but I must ask you to keep your boat waiting for half an hour more.
You will be all the longer with your wife, you know. I thought of that, Crayford."
"I am much obliged to you, Captain Helding. I suppose there is some other reason for inverting the customary order of things, and keeping the lieutenant on shore after the captain is on board?"
"Quite true! there _is_ another reason. I want you to wait for a volunteer who has just joined us."
"A volunteer!"
"Yes. He has his outfit to get in a hurry, and he may be half an hour late."
"It's rather a sudden appointment, isn't it?"
"No doubt. Very sudden."
"And--pardon me--it's rather a long time (as we are situated) to keep the ships waiting for one man?"
"Quite true, again. But a man who is worth having is worth waiting for. This man is worth having; this man is worth his weight in gold to such an expedition as ours. Seasoned to all climates and all fatigues--a strong fellow, a brave fellow, a clever fellow--in short, an excellent officer. I know him well, or I should never have taken him. The country gets plenty of work out of my new volunteer, Crayford. He only returned yesterday from foreign service."
"He only returned yesterday from foreign service! And he volunteers this morning to join the Arctic expedition? You astonish me."
"I dare say I do! You can't be more astonished than I was, when he presented himself at my hotel and told me what he wanted.
'Why, my good fellow, you have just got home,' I said. 'Are you weary of your *******, after only a few hours' experience of it?'
His answer rather startled me. He said, 'I am weary of my life, sir. I have come home and found a trouble to welcome me, which goes near to break my heart. If I don't take refuge in absence and hard work, I am a lost man. Will you give me a refuge?'
That's what he said, Crayford, word for word."
"Did you ask him to explain himself further?"
"Not I! I knew his value, and I took the poor devil on the spot, without pestering him with any more questions. No need to ask him to explain himself. The facts speak for themselves in these cases. The old story, my good friend! There's a woman at the bottom of it, of course."
Mrs. Crayford, waiting for the return of her husband as patiently as she could, was startled by feeling a hand suddenly laid on her shoulder. She looked round, and confronted Clara. Her first feeling of surprise changed instantly to alarm. Clara was trembling from head to foot.
"What is the matter? What has frightened you, my dear?"
"Lucy! I _have_ heard of him!"
"Richard Wardour again?"
"Remember what I told you. I have heard every word of the conversation between Captain Helding and your husband. A man came to the captain this morning and volunteered to join the _Wanderer_. The captain has taken him. The man is Richard Wardour."
"You don't mean it! Are you sure? Did you hear Captain Helding mention his name?"
"No."
"Then how do you know it's Richard Wardour?"
"Don't ask me! I am as certain of it, as that I am standing here!
They are going away together, Lucy--away to the eternal ice and snow. My foreboding has come true! The two will meet--the man who is to marry me and the man whose heart I have broken!"
"Your foreboding has _not_ come true, Clara! The men have not met here--the men are not likely to meet elsewhere. They are appointed to separate ships. Frank belongs to the _Sea-mew_, and Wardour to the _Wanderer_. See! Captain Helding has done. My husband is coming this way. Let me make sure. Let me speak to him."
Lieutenant Crayford returned to his wife. She spoke to him instantly.
"William! you have got a new volunteer who joins the _Wanderer_?"
"What! you have been listening to the captain and me?"
"I want to know his name?"
"How in the world did you manage to hear what we said to each other?"
"His name? has the captain given you his name?"
"Don't excite yourself, my dear. Look! you are positively alarming Miss Burnham. The new volunteer is a perfect stranger to us. There is his name--last on the ship's list."
Mrs. Crayford snatched the list out of her husband's hand, and read the name:
"RICHARD WARDOUR."
Second Scene.
The Hut of the _Sea-mew_.
