第44章

Nor did she scarcely hear his hurried comment to the officer and unconscious corroboration of her story: how a brig had raced them from the Gate, was heading for the bar, but suddenly sheered off and put away to sea again, as if from some signal from the headland."Yes--the bluff," interrupted Captain Jennings bitterly, "I thought of that, but the old man said it was more diplomatic just now to PREVENT an attempt than even to successfully resist it."But when they were alone again in their little cottage, and Zephas'

honest eyes--with no trace of evil knowledge or suspicion in their homely, neutral lightness--were looking into hers with his usual simple trustfulness, Mrs.Bunker trembled, whimpered, and--I grieve to say--basely funked her boasted confession.But here the Deity which protects feminine weakness intervened with the usual miracle.

As he gazed at his wife's troubled face, an apologetic cloud came over his rugged but open brow, and a smile of awkward deprecating embarrassment suffused his eyes."I declare to goodness, Mollie, but I must tell you suthin, although I guess I didn't kalkilate to say a word about it.But, darn it all, I can't keep it in.No!

Lookin' inter that innercent face o' yourn"--pressing her flushing cheeks between his cool brown hands--"and gazing inter them two truthful eyes"--they blinked at this moment with a divine modesty--"and thinkin' of what you've just did for your kentry--like them revolutionary women o' '76--I feel like a darned swab of a traitor myself.Well! what I want ter tell you is this: Ye know, or ye've heard me tell o' that Mrs.Fairfax, as left her husband for that fire-eatin' Marion, and stuck to him through thick and thin, and stood watch and watch with him in this howlin' Southern rumpus they're kickin' up all along the coast, as if she was a man herself.Well, jes as I hauled up at the wharf at 'Frisco, she comes aboard.

"'You're Cap Bunker?' she says.

"'That's me, ma'am,' I says.

"'You're a Northern man and you go with your kind,' sez she; 'but you're a white man, and thar's no cur blood in you.' But you ain't listenin', Mollie; you're dead tired, lass,"--with a commiserating look at her now whitening face,--"and I'll haul in line and wait.

Well, to cut it short, she wanted me to take her down the coast a bit to where she could join Marion.She said she'd been shook by his friends, followed by spies--and, blame my skin, Mollie, ef that proud woman didn't break down and CRY like a baby.Now, Mollie, what got ME in all this, was that them Chivalry folks--ez was always jawin' about their 'Southern dames' and their 'Ladye fairs,'

and always runnin' that kind of bilge water outer their scuppers whenever they careened over on a fair wind--was jes the kind to throw off on a woman when they didn't want her, and I kinder thought I'd like HER to see the difference betwixt the latitude o'

Charleston and Cape Cod.So I told her I didn't want the jewelry and dimons she offered me, but if she would come down to the wharf, after dark, I'd smuggle her aboard, and I'd allow to the men that she was YOUR AUNTIE ez I was givin' a free passage to! Lord! dear!

think o' me takin' the name o' Mollie Bunker's aunt in vain for that sort o' woman! Think o' me," continued Captain Bunker with a tentative chuckle, "sort o' pretendin' to hand yo'r auntie to Kernel Marion for--for his lady love! I don't wonder ye's half frighted and half laffin'," he added, as his wife uttered a hysterical cry; "it WAS awful! But it worked, and I got her off, and wot's more I got her shipped to Mazatlan, where she'll join Marion, and the two are goin' back to Virginy, where I guess they won't trouble Californy again.Ye know now, deary," he went on, speaking with difficulty through Mrs.Bunker's clinging arms and fast dripping tears, "why I didn't heave to to say 'good-by.' But it's all over now--I've made a clean breast of it, Mollie--and don't you cry!"But it was NOT all over.For a moment later Captain Bunker began to fumble in his waistcoat pocket with the one hand that was not clasping his wife's waist."One thing more, Mollie; when I left her and refused to take any of her dimons, she put a queer sort o'

ring into my hand, and told me with a kind o' mischievious, bedevilin' smile, that I must keep it to remember her by.Here it is--why, Mollie lass! are you crazy?"She had snatched it from his fingers and was running swiftly from the cottage out into the tempestuous night.He followed closely, until she reached the edge of the rocks.And only then, in the struggling, fast-flying moonlight, she raised a passionate hand, and threw it far into the sea!

As he led her back to the cottage she said she was jealous, and honest Captain Bunker, with his arm around her, felt himself the happiest man in the world!

......

From that day the flag flew regularly over the rocky shelf, and, in time, bugles and morning drumbeats were wafted from it to the decks of passing ships.For the Federal Government had adjudged the land for its own use, paid Captain Bunker a handsome sum for its possession, and had discreetly hidden the little cottage of Mrs.

Bunker and its history forever behind bastion and casemate.