The men who had organized it were enthusiasts,
imbued with that fever-thirst of the explorer which has made many
martyrs, from the age of the Cabots to the days of Franklin.
The "Pandion" sailed in that gray cheerless morning, her white sails
gleaming ghastly athwart the chill mists of the river, and so vanished
for ever Victor Carrington from the eyes of all men, save those who
went with him. The fate of that expedition was never known. Beneath
what iceberg the "Pandion" found her grave none can tell. Brave and
noble hearts perished with her, and to die with those good men was too
honourable a doom for such a wretch as Victor Carrington.
CHAPTER XL.
"SO SHALL YE REAP."
Little now remains to be told of this tale of crime and retribution, of
suffering and compensation. Miss Brewer told her dreadful story, as far
as she knew it, with perfect truth; and her evidence, together with the
evidence of the chemist who had supplied Madame Durski from time to
time with the fatal consoler of all her pains and sorrows, made it
clear that the luckless woman, lying quietly in the darkened room at
Hilton House, had died from an over-dose of opium.
Douglas Dale could not attend that inquest. He was stricken down with
fever; the fate of the woman he had so loved, so unjustly suspected,
nearly cost him his life, and when he recovered sufficiently, he left
England, not to return for three years.
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