CHAPTER VII.

THE MURDER.

Maggie did as he desired her, in silence, and the two stood close together in the seclusion of the spare galley. The wind roared and howled outside, and lashed the waves into a murderous fury against the proud ship that dared to plough her way through them, but Harland spoke in low, incisive tones, and every word he uttered was audible to his companion.

‘I have been thinking over what you said to me this morning,’ he commenced, ‘and I felt it was quite necessary we should see each other again. The fact is, you took me so completely aback by your unexpected appearance and your vehement accusations, that I really did not know what to say to you. But you are utterly mistaken in thinking I have any _real_ intention to marry Miss Vansittart. How _can_ I have, when I am married to you? The thing is too silly to be refuted. You say you overheard me talking a lot of nonsense to her last night. I acknowledge I did. The girl has taken an inordinate fancy for me, and I don’t quite see my way out of it; and so--well you know what we men are,--bad hats, the very best of us, when there is no one by to keep us straight,--but I never meant anything serious by it, upon my word of honour. Don’t you believe me?’

‘Yes,’ replied Maggie, in the lowest of whispers.

‘You needn’t be in the least afraid of our being overheard. It would take a speaking-trumpet to make one’s self understood through this gale. However, what I want to explain to you, Iris, is, that my worst fault has been in concealing the fact of your existence from the Vansittarts. _He_ made it a proviso that his agent should be an unmarried man, and as I did not intend to take you out with me, I thought there was no harm in holding my tongue on the subject, at all events until I had made myself indispensable to him. And the deception has entangled me in a dilemma, as deceptions generally do. But the idea of my marrying Miss Vansittart is too utterly ridiculous. I have let her talk as she pleased about it, and I have “chaffed” her back in return, but she knows, as well as I do, that it can never be. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ repeated Maggie, in the same tone.

‘Well, as that affair is settled, I’ll tell you what I think will be best to do for both of us. I can’t afford to give up this appointment (it’s six hundred a year, and will be raised by-and-by), and I should not be able to support you if I did. So you must let me settle you quietly at Canterbury in some respectable boarding-house, where you will have society, and I will send you remittances monthly until it is safe for you to join me again. It won’t be long first. Of course, since you are in the country, it will be to my advantage to have you with me, and I shall seize the very first opportunity to confess the truth to Mr Vansittart, and ask his pardon for not having informed him of my marriage from the first. I don’t think he will be hard upon me, especially as he sees his daughter has taken a fancy to me, and is anxious to put a stop to it. For, of course, I should never have been a suitable match for her, even if I had been free. He will require money with any suitor for her hand. Are you quite satisfied now?’

Again Maggie answered only by a monosyllable, and her reticence aroused Harland’s suspicions.

‘What the deuce is the matter with you, that you can’t speak?’ he said, irritably. ‘Are you trying some game on me? I warn you not, for I won’t stand it. Now, look here. I can’t do as I have told you, unless I feel that I am free from that brute Farrell. It’s of no use my trying to make a position for myself in a new world, if he has the power to come forward whenever it pleases him, and denounce me as a criminal. You say he holds certain written proofs against me. Is this really the case? Have you spoken to him about them? Have you got them with you?’

‘Yes,’ she said again.

‘Let me see them,’ replied Harland quickly; and as he spoke he struck a match against the heel of his boot, and held it on a level with her face.

The sickly blue flame flared up for a moment, and revealed the features of Maggie Greet.

‘_Maggie!_ by all that’s holy!’ exclaimed Harland, starting backwards. ‘What do you mean by playing this trick upon me? Why was I not told of this before?’

‘Told of _what_ before?’

‘That you were on board ship, in company with my wife. That I had been tracked by a couple of you--confound you both!’

‘Oh, yes! I daresay you’d like to confound us both, very much. You’ve tried your best to do it already, Mr Harland, but you ain’t clever enough. That’s where the fault lies, you see!’ cried Maggie unabashed. ‘And now, what may you have to say to Mrs Harland, as you can’t say to me?’

‘Be quiet, you baggage!’ returned Godfrey angrily, ‘and go back to your berth. My business lies with your mistress, and not with you.’

‘Oh! well, then, you won’t see my mistress, and so you may do as best you can without her. She has friends on board as won’t consent to her being handed over, without protection, to the clutches of a brute like you; and so if you have any message for her, you can send it through me.’

‘Go to the d--l!’ cried Harland, turning on his heel. ‘I shall not stay here a minute longer.’

‘Not even to get them papers?’

‘What do _you_ know about the papers?’

‘As much as yourself, I fancy, and p’r’aps more. You asked me just now if I’d got ’em, and I said “_yes_;” but if they’re no use to you, I may as well carry them back again.’

‘From whom did you get them?’ demanded Harland, retracing his steps. ‘From that brute Farrell?’

‘Don’t you call better men than yourself names,’ retorted Maggie sharply. ‘Farrell’s worth fifty of you, any day. Yes, I did get them from him. Who else?’

‘Your mistress showed you my letter, then?’

‘Yes, she did, and a pack of lies it was, into the bargain.’

‘Take care how you insult me!’ cried Harland.

‘Look here, Godfrey Harland,’ said Maggie, ‘don’t you try any nonsense on me, for I’ll soon bring you to your marrow-bones. Will Farrell’s papers is _my_ papers. Do you understand now? He is going to marry me as soon as we land in New Zealand, and there’ll be _two_ against you then, instead of one. What do you say to that?’

‘He’s welcome to my leavings: they’re good enough for him,’ returned the man ironically.

Maggie’s hot blood rose to fever heat.

‘Oh, you blackguard,--you black-hearted villain!’ she exclaimed. ‘_This_ is the reward a woman gets for letting herself be trampled on by men. You _know_ I was innocent enough when I first came to you. I was a poor, ignorant, country girl, as hardly knew right from wrong, and you left your sweet young wife, who’d never done you an unkindness, to stoop to teach me how to sin. Lord forgive me!’ cried poor Maggie, with a choking sob in her throat, ‘for I’ve never forgiven myself. Many and many’s the time I’d have run away and drowned myself, for I didn’t feel fit to live, except for _her_. But she wanted me, and I hadn’t the heart to leave her alone with you. _I_ knew how cruel and wicked you could be, when the first fancy had died out of you, and that you weren’t fit to have the care of any woman. Oh, how cruel and false you have been to her, and made me be too! Oh, my poor mistress! If I could die to make her happy, I would. But nobody can be happy as has to do with _you_.’

‘You’re pleased to be complimentary,’ sneered Harland.

‘I speak the truth, master, and you know it. You know you’ve been her ruin, as well as mine. I’m only a poor girl, and don’t signify p’r’aps so much. But _her_, so delicate and high-bred--sich a lady as she is, from head to foot. You ought to be hung for what you’ve done to _her_. Do you think _I_ believe all your palaver about not marrying Miss Vansittart? Not I. _She_ might have, poor dear, but _I_ know you better. It was all put on to deceive her, and get hold of the papers. You’d have settled her in Canterbury, yes! and then she’d never have heard of you, or your money, again. Don’t I know the liar you are?’

‘Have you got those papers?’ demanded Harland fiercely. ‘I suppose they’re for sale. What’s their price?’

‘Oh, yes, they’re for sale--never fear; but I doubt if _you_ can buy them. They’re going in exchange for my mistress being acknowledged openly as your wife, and placed in her proper position, and treated with kindness for the future, and _then_, p’r’aps, Will and I may talk about letting you have the papers.’

‘D--n Will and you!’ exclaimed Harland, as his eyes gleamed with hate and fury on her.

‘Will and I are much more likely to do that for _you_, Mr Harland. We have neither of us much cause to love you. You have ruined both our lives,--robbed us of our good names, and left a nasty stain behind you which nothing will wipe out. I don’t think we owe you much--unless it is revenge. And we’ll have our revenge, never fear, unless you buy us off. Do your duty by the mistress, plain and above-board, or we’ll take good care you don’t work mischief to any one else. It wouldn’t take many words from us to get you locked up, and that’s what we mean to do, both on us, as sure as your name’s Godfrey Harland.’

‘You _do_--do you?’ replied Harland, with clenched hands and teeth.

He had made up his mind how to act whilst she was speaking. The dose he had obtained for Iris would do just as well for Maggie, and he pressed closer to her with it in his hand. She, foreseeing meditated violence in his action, raised her fist and struck him in the face, then turned and rushed out of the spare galley on to the darkness of the quarter-deck. It was still deserted, the passengers were in the saloon, the seamen in the forecastle, and the howling of the gale permitted only itself to be heard. As Maggie tried to stem her way against the driving wind, which seemed to push her backwards with every step, she stumbled against the steam-winch, and in another moment Harland had caught and held her from behind.

A murderous hand was placed upon her throat, a handkerchief, which exhaled a sickly, sweet, intoxicating fume, was pressed tightly over her mouth and nostrils, and her body was held by his against the main rail. She could not move; she could not scream; she could not even think. For a moment she struggled feebly, and clutched with her dying grasp at Harland’s garment. But the next, all things seemed growing dim--the memory of her wrongs--the fear for her safety--even the knowledge of the presence of Death faded from her as the fumes of the chloroform mounted to her very brain, and her breath came in gasps, which grew shorter and shorter until they ceased altogether. Then her body was lifted quickly in strong arms from the deck, and thrust over the mainrail, and it hit the bumpkin with a dull thud, as it dropped silently into the seething deep.

It plunged beneath the surface and rose again, and the _Pandora_ passed ahead of it, scattering banks of white foam in her wake, like a sea shroud for the dying. For in that moment Maggie Greet’s senses had returned to her. She felt the icy water flowing over her head, and into her ears and mouth.

Oh, what was this? What had happened to her?

‘Is it some awful dream? Where am I? Who put me here? Oh, Will, Will, save me!’ But the wind roared to prevent all chance of her feeble cry being overheard, and the merciless waves flowed over her head again, and sucked her body down. ‘Oh, to die like this! My poor mistress! God in heaven! forgive me.’

Again her body disappeared, and after an agonising struggle for life, poor Maggie rose once more, feebly murmuring, ‘I forgive--forgive,’ and then sunk beneath the waves for ever.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Godfrey Harland leant against the mainrail, sick and dizzy with horror at the deed which he had done, and staring with blank eyes at the boiling sea, in which the girl he had ruined had disappeared. The handkerchief he had pressed against her nose and mouth, reeking with chloroform, was still held in his hand. In his confusion, he did not even know that it was there. He had never meant to go so far as this. He had prepared the chloroform to use in case of his experiencing any trouble in getting the papers into his possession, but when he saw Maggie so completely unconscious, and realised the danger of being caught in the act of searching her body, it seemed so much easier to throw her overboard, and get rid of her dangerous tongue and the proofs of his forgery at the same time. And now it was over, and there was no help for it. He gazed at the boiling foam as it dashed past the vessel, in a vacant manner, as though he half expected Maggie’s face to rise from it and confront him, Maggie who was already miles away, drifting without sense or motion in the under-current of the sea. And as he gazed, strange to say, Godfrey Harland did not think of her as he had seen her last, but as she had been when they first met--a pretty country girl, all faith in him and eagerness to obey his will--and his limbs shook under him as he remembered it.

‘Hullo! Harland! what are you doing here? It’s a rough night for musing,’ shouted a voice behind him. ‘We’re going to the smoke-room! Come along and spin us a yarn! The ladies have beat a retreat, and there’s not much to be done below.’

Godfrey Harland turned round to confront Captain Lovell and the doctor.

‘All right,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I’ll go with you. It’s the beastliest night we’ve had for a long time.’

As the three men ensconced themselves in the smoke-room, and took their seats, Dr Lennard snuffed the air.

‘Who’s got chloroform?’ he asked curiously. Lovell looked amused, and Harland started. ‘Why, it’s _you_!’ continued the doctor. ‘It’s on your handkerchief.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he stammered; ‘chloroform, of course. I’ve been using it for a toothache. It generally does me good.’

‘Have you a toothache now?’

‘No, it’s gone!’ replied Harland, with an unquiet look round the cabin.

‘Well! stow your handkerchief away, for goodness’ sake, for it’s too strong to be agreeable. I hate the smell of chloroform. It recalls unpleasant operations to me. You must have a sound heart, to be able to inhale it at that rate. I should think you must have had enough to kill two people on that handkerchief.’

And with a ghastly grin, that was intended for a smile, Harland thrust it deep into the pocket of his coat.

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