To this Guy answers nothing. In a flash he feels the truth of the painter’s last crushing remark. But a moment after Anglo-Saxon pluck springs up again in him, and he mutters:
“By heaven! what a triumph to pluck the thing Alva loves most out of his hands; to make his own daughter that he prizes the most of anything on this earth the bride, the honored bride, of the man upon whose head he has placed three thousand carolus guilders reward—the sea pirate—‘The First of the English.’ ” and he bursts out into mocking, triumphant, but loving laughter.
CHAPTER V.
“THE LION’S JAWS GAPE FOR ME!”
“Bravo!” cries the Fleming, “Bravo! But first she must love you.”
“I’ll make her love me,” exclaims Chester, looking at the ruby ring upon his finger that seems to him not the red light of danger, but the beacon of Cupid.
“Well, I’m glad you are so confident. I wish I were equally so.” the painter sighs; then goes on energetically: [[60]]“But now to business. You cannot linger over your love-making. Queen Elizabeth must be warned of the plots against her life, and of Ridolfi, the Italian banker in London.”
“Oh, we’ll take good care of him,” says Guy, savagely. “I must join my ship this evening and sail for England, and to do this I must get the words of to-night so I can pass the gates of the town after sunset.”
“Why not leave at once?”