"Well, my son," began Captain Salt, as the Earl reascended the stairs. "Thanks be that we are alone together at last! Do I not keep my promises?"
"Indeed, father, you are kind. There is only one thing—"
"What is that?"
"I should prefer to return to Harwich alive; and seeing that I have eaten nothing for a day and a half—"
His father interrupted him by taking his arm and hurrying him off to the kitchen of the auberge, where a fat woman was basting a couple of ducks before a roaring fire.
"Pardon me, mistress," he began in Dutch; "but can you give this young man a breakfast?"
The hostess seemed to be annoyed.
"What does he want?" she inquired sharply.
The question being interpreted to Tristram, he answered that he wanted everything, but that in the meantime the ducks would serve to break the edge of his fast.
"But these are for his Majesty."