‘What stuff is this?’
‘Is it stuff?’
‘Fustian, I doubt not. Come, sad soul’—he put a hand cheerily on the poor fellow’s shoulder—‘be of good heart. These are empty humours, that come of nothing. The seed in thee was never no man’s curse.’
Clerivault shook his head. For some days past he had been in a curiously dejected mood, silent and low-spirited. Often Brion had caught him with his eyes fixed upon him in a yearning wistful way, the meaning of which he could in no wise interpret. But it made him uneasy. Was the dear man sickening for something, he wondered? The thought gave him a queer turn. He had never even put to himself what the loss of Clerivault might, would mean to him; he had never so much as associated the image of death with that tough, wiry constitution. Nor would he now: merely to think of it seemed to bring the Impossible within the bounds of startling Possibility.
‘You do not feel ill, do you,’ he asked anxiously—‘in body, I mean?’
‘Never sounder, Sir.’
‘Then, what sick fancy is this? Has our enterprise proved a failure? Ask our Admiral what he thinks of it.’
The wild eyes opened at that, with a spark of fury in them.
‘Hark ye, Sir. His England is not my England. I’ll not take his word for that success. What blows we have struck have been against, not for, my England. Will her gentle heart not hate me for it?’
‘O, Clerivault, my dear! I see what haunts your mind. Well, we took no hand in those same felon blows.’