He ran up the ladder, and seeing the
captain asked him what was up.
"Sailing orders, Chief," said Captain Landry, enjoying his
amazement. "We'll be off the ground in half an hour, eastward
bound!" "But I wasn't told anything," cried Frank. "I never got
any orders."
"The little lady said you wasn't to be disturbed," said the
captain, "and she took it on herself to order your staff to go
ahead. I guess you'll find a pretty good head of steam already!"
Frank ran to the side and called back his boat, giving the man
five shillings to take a note at once to Cassie. He had no time
for more than a few lines, but he could not go to sea without at
least one word of farewell. They were cutting the anchor and were
already under steerage way when Cassie came off herself in a
launch and passed up a letter directed to the chief engineer. It
reached him in the engine-room, where he, not knowing that she was
but a few feet distant, was spared the sight of her pale and
despairing face.
The letter itself was almost incoherent. She knew, she said, whom
she had to thank for his departure. That vixen, that hussy, that
stuck-up minx, who treated him like a dog and yet grudged him to
another, who, God help her, loved him too well for her own good--
it was her ladyship she had to thank for spoiling everything and
carrying him away. Was he not man enough to assert himself and
leave a ship where he was put upon so awful? Let him ask her
mightiness in two words, yes or no; and then when he had come down
from the clouds and had learned the truth, poor silly fool--then
let him come back to his Cassie, who loved him so dear, and who
(if she did say it herself) had a heart worth fifty of his
mistress and didn't need no powder to set off her complexion.
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