the small chamber, and back again. His desire was to do her will in this, which is natural enough--for if it is true that who knows all must perforce forgive all, never could it have been truer than in the case of Sir Oliver Tressilian.
So he told his tale. Pacing there he related it at length, from the days when he had toiled at an oar on one of the galleys of Spain down to that hour in which aboard the Spanish vessel taken under Cape Spartel he had determined upon that voyage to England to present his reckoning to his brother. He told his story simply and without too great a wealth of detail, yet he omitted nothing of all that had gone to place him where he stood. And she, listening, was so profoundly moved that at one moment her eyes glistened with tears which she sought vainly to repress. Yet he, pacing there, absorbed, with head bowed and eyes that never once strayed in her direction, saw none of this.
"And so," he said, when at last that odd narrative had reached its end, "you know what the forces were that drove me. Another stronger than myself might have resisted and preferred to suffer death. But I was not strong enough. Or perhaps it is that stronger than myself was my desire to punish, to vent the bitter hatred into which my erstwhile love for Lionel was turned."
"And for me, too--as you have told me," she added.
"Not so," he corrected her. "I hated you for your unfaith, and most of all for your having burnt unread the letter that I sent you by the hand of Pitt. In doing that you contributed to the wrongs I was enduring, you destroyed my one chance of establishing my innocence and seeking rehabilitation, you doomed me for life to the ways which I was treading. But I did not then know what ample cause you had to believe me what I seemed. I did not know that it was believed I had fled. Therefore I forgive you freely a deed for which at one time I confess that I hated you, and which spurred me to bear you off when I found you under my hand that night at Arwenack when I went for Lionel."
"You mean that it was no part of your intent to have done so?" she asked him.
"To carry you off together with him?" he asked. "I swear to God I had not premeditated that. Indeed, it was done because not premeditated, for had I considered it, I do think I should have been proof against any such temptation. It assailed me suddenly when I beheld you there with Lionel, and I succumbed to it. Knowing what I now know I am punished enough, I think."
"I think I can understand," she murmured gently, as if to comfort him, for quick pain had trembled in his voice.
He tossed back his turbaned head. "To understand is something," said he. "It is half-way at least to forgiveness. But ere forgiveness can be accepted the evil done must be atoned for to the full."
"If possible," said she.
"It must be made possible," he answered her with heat, and on that he checked abruptly, arrested by a sound of shouting from without.
He recognized the voice of Larocque, who at dawn had returned to his sentinel's post on the summit of the headland, relieving the man who had replaced him there during the night.
"My lord! My lord!" was the cry, in a voice shaken by excitement, and succeeded by a shouting chorus from the crew.
Sakr-el-Bahr turned swiftly to the entrance, whisked aside the curtain, and stepped out upon the poop. Larocque was in the very act of clambering over the bulwarks amidships, towards the waist-deck where Asad awaited him in company with Marzak and the trusty Biskaine. The prow, on which the corsairs had lounged at ease since yesterday, was now a seething mob of inquisitive babbling men, crowding to the rail and even down the gangway in their eagerness to learn what news it was that brought the sentinel aboard in such excited haste.
From where he stood Sakr-el-Bahr heard Larocque's loud announcement.
"The ship I sighted at dawn, my lord!"
"Well?" barked Asad.
"She is here--in the bay beneath that headland. She has just dropped anchor."
"No need for alarm in that," replied the Basha at once. "Since she has anchored there it is plain that she has no suspicion of our presence. What manner of ship is she?"
"A tall galleon of twenty guns, flying the flag of England.
"Of England!" cried Asad in surprise. "She'll need be a stout vessel to hazard herself in Spanish waters."
Sakr-el-Bahr advanced to the rail.
"Does she display no further device?" he asked.
Larocque turned at the question. "Ay," he answered, "a narrow blue pennant on her mizzen is charged with a white bird--a stork, I think."
"A stork?" echoed Sakr-el-Bahr thoughtfully. He could call to mind no such English blazon, nor did it seem to him that it could possibly be English. He caught the sound of a quickly indrawn breath behind him. He turned to find Rosamund standing in the entrance, not more than half concealed by the curtain. Her face showed white and eager, her eyes were wide.
"What is't?" he asked her shortly.
"A stork, he thinks," she said, as though that were answer enough.
"I' faith an unlikely bird," he commented. "The fellow is mistook."
"Yet not by much, Sir Oliver."
"How? Not by much?" Intrigued by something in her tone and glance, he stepped quickly up to her, whilst below the chatter of voices increased.
"That which he takes to be a stork is a heron--a white heron, and white is argent in heraldry, is't not?"
"It is. What then?"
"D'ye not see? That ship will be the Silver Heron."
He looked at her. "'S life!" said he, "I reck little whether it be the silver heron or the golden grasshopper. What odds?"
"It is Sir John's ship--Sir John Killigrew's," she explained. "She was all but ready to sail when... when you came to Arwenack. He was for the Indies. Instead--don't you see?--out of love for me he will have come after me upon a forlorn hope of overtaking you ere you could make Barbary."
"God's light!" said Sakr-el-Bahr, and fell to musing. Then he raised his head and laughed. "Faith, he's some days late for that!"
But the jest evoked no response from her. She continued to stare at him with those eager yet timid eyes.
"And yet," he continued, "he comes opportunely enough. If the breeze that has fetched him is faint, yet surely it blows from Heaven."
"Were it...?" she paused, faltering a moment.
Then, "Were it possible to communicate with him?" she asked, yet with hesitation.
"Possible--ay," he answered. "Though we must needs devise the means, and that will prove none so easy."
"And you would do it?" she inquired, an undercurrent of wonder in her question, some recollection of it in her face.
"Why, readily," he answered, "since no other way presents itself. No doubt 'twill cost some lives," he added, "but then...." And he shrugged to complete the sentence.
"Ah, no, no! Not at that price!" she protested. And how was he to know that all the price she was thinking of was his own life, which she conceived would be forfeited if the assistance of the Silver Heron were invoked?
Before he could return her any answer his attention was diverted. A sullen threatening note had crept into the babble of the crew, and suddenly one or two voices were raised to demand insistently that Asad should put to sea at once and remove his vessel from a neighbourhood become so dangerous. Now, the fault of this was Marzak's. His was the voice that first had uttered that timid suggestion, and the infection of his panic had spread instantly through the corsair ranks.
Asad, drawn to the full of his gaunt height, turned upon them