"I need not finish the bowl?" he asked.
"Yes--to the last drop."
He complied, and then suddenly withdrew the vessel from his lips.
"What is this--at the bottom?--a ring?" He extracted a plain gold ring from the bowl.
"What is the meaning of this? It is a wedding-ring."
"Yes--mine."
"It is early to lose it."
"I threw it in."
"You--Judith--why?"
"I return it to you."
He raised himself on one elbow and looked at her fixedly with threatening eyes.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"That ring was put on my finger when I was unconscious. Wait till I accept it freely."
"But--Judith--the wedding is over."
"Only a half wedding."
"Well--well--it shall soon be a whole one. We will have the register signed to-morrow."
Judith shook her head.
"You are acting strangely to-night," said he.
"Answer me," said Judith. "Did you not send out Jamie with a light to mislead the sailors, and draw them on to Doom Bar?"
"Jamie, again!" exclaimed Coppinger, impatiently.
"Yes, I have to consider for Jamie. Answer me, did you not send him----"
He burst in angrily, "If you will--yes--he took the light to the sh.o.r.e. I knew there was a wreck. When a ship is in distress she must have a light."
"You are not speaking the truth. Answer me, did you go on board the wrecked vessel to save those who were cast away?"
"They would not have been saved without me. They had lost their heads--every one."
"Captain Coppinger," said Judith, "I have lost all trust in you. I return you the ring which I will never wear. I have been to see the rector and told him that I refuse you, and I will never sign the register."
"I will force the ring on to your finger," said Coppinger.
"You are a man, stronger than I--but I can defend myself, as you know to your cost. Half married we are--and so must remain, and never, never shall we be more than that."
Then she left the room, and Coppinger dashed his posset cup to the ground, but held the ring and turned it in his fingers, and the light flickered on it, a red gold ring like that red gold hair that was about his throat.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.
A CHANGE OF WIND.
After many years of separation, father and son were together once more. Early in the morning after the wreck in Dover Bar, Oliver Menaida appeared at his father"s cottage, bruised and wet through, but in health and with his purse in his hand.
When he had gone overboard with the wrecker, the tide was falling and he had been left on the sands of the Bar, where he had spent a cold and miserable night, with only the satisfaction to warm him that his life and his money were his. He was not floating, like Wyvill, a headless trunk, nor was he without his pouch that contained his gold and valuable papers.
Mr. Menaida was roused from sleep very early to admit Oliver. The young man had recognized where he was, as soon as sufficient light was in the sky, and he had been carried across the estuary of the Camel by one of the boats that was engaged in clearing the wreck, under the direction of the captain of the coast-guard. But three men had been arrested on the wrecked vessel, three of those who had boarded her for plunder, all the rest had effected their escape, and it was questionable whether these three could be brought to justice, as they protested they had come from sh.o.r.e as salvers. They had heard the signals of distress and had put off to do what they could for those who were in jeopardy. No law forbad men coming to the a.s.sistance of the wrecked. It could not be proved that they had laid their hands on and kept for their own use any of the goods of the pa.s.sengers or any of the cargo of the vessel. It was true that from some of the women their purses had been exacted, but the men taken professed their innocence of having done this, and the man who had made the demand--there was but one--had disappeared. Unhappily he had not been secured.
It was a question also whether proceedings could be taken relative to the exhibition of lights that had misguided the merchantman. The coast-guard had come on Mr. Menaida and Judith on the downs with a light, but he was conducting her to her new house, and there could be entertained against them no suspicion of having acted with evil intent.
"Do you know, father," said Oliver, after he was rested, had slept and fed, "I am pretty sure that the scoundrel who attacked me was Captain Coppinger. I cannot swear. It is many years now since I heard his voice, and when I did hear it, it was but very occasionally. What made me suspect at the time that I was struggling with Captain Cruel was that he had my head back over the gunwale and called for an axe, swearing that he would treat me like Wyvill. That story was new when I left home, and folk said that Coppinger had killed the man."
Mr. Menaida fidgeted.
"That was the man who was at the head of the entire gang. He it was who issued the orders which the rest obeyed; and he, moreover, was the man who required the pa.s.sengers to deliver up their purses and valuables before he allowed them to enter the boat."
"Between ourselves," said Uncle Zachie, rubbing his chin and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his mouth, "between you and me and the poker, I have no doubt about it, and I could bring his neck into the halter if I chose."
"Then why do you not, father? The ruffian would not have scrupled to hack off my head had an axe been handy, or had I waited till he had got hold of one."
Mr. Menaida shook his head.
"There are a deal of things that belong to all things," he said. "I was on the down with my little pet and idol, Judith, and we had the lantern, and it was that lantern that proved fatal to your vessel."
"What, father! We owe our wreck to you?"
"No, and yet it must be suffered to be so supposed, I must allow many hard words to be rapped out against me, my want of consideration, my scatterbrainedness. I admit that I am not a Solomon, but I should not be such an a.s.s, such a criminal, as on a night like the last to walk over the downs above the cliffs with a lantern. Nevertheless I cannot clear myself."
"Why not?"
"Because of Judith."
"I do not understand."
"I was escorting her home, to her husband"s----"
"Is she married?"