Falchion.
This was the secret--a beautiful one. She rose. "They disgraced Hector in
New Caledonia," she said, "because he refused to punish a convict at Ile
Nou who did not deserve it. He determined to go to France to represent
his case. He left me behind, because we were poor. He went to Sydney.
There he came to know this good man,"--her finger gently felt his name
upon the stone,--"who made him a guest upon his ship; and so he came on
towards England. In the Indian Ocean he was taken ill: and this was the
end."
She mournfully sank again beside the grave, but she was no longer
weeping.
"What was this officer's vessel?" I said presently. She drew from her
dress a letter. "It is here. Please read it all. He wrote that to me when
Hector died."
The superscription to the letter was--H.B.M.S. Porcupine.
I might have told her then that the 'Porcupine' was in the harbour at
Aden, but I felt that things would work out to due ends without my
help--which, indeed, they began to do immediately. As we stood there in
silence, I reading over and over again the line upon the pedestal, I
heard footsteps behind, and, turning, I saw a man approaching us, who,
from his manner, though he was dressed in civilian's clothes, I guessed
to be an officer of the navy.
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