"And hear me," she said. "I swear also——"
But he closed her lips. "No," he whispered: "I will not have any promise of you, querida. Woman are placed different from men, and policies may turn on giving their hands in marriage. I would not have you forced to wed, and then always be pestered by remembering an unfulfillable vow. I would rather have you free, and then, if God wills, we shall come together some day and marry; and if not, we shall stay forever apart."
"Yet I will——"
"No," he pleaded, "do not give me your pledge in return, or else you will send me away still more unhappy."
And then, bareheaded, he knelt and kissed her fingers—he that had a moment before been kissing her so madly on the lips!—and then with stately courtesy he led her back into the palace. He and she were in turns closeted with the Governor that night, and the next morning an escort with covered litters borne of four paraded in the palace patio.
The Prince gave no sign of what had happened: he was debonair as a man could be; and he was "Master Thomas Benson" still. He made his adieux as though he were a favoured ambassador taking leave of the court of a king, and he and Master Laughan entered the litters. A trumpet sounded, and the bearers and the escort stepped out across the pavement. A window-shutter opened, and a slender arm stretched out fluttering a dainty kerchief, and then the litters passed out to the glaring street beyond, and the episode was over.
Down they went by the way they had come up, past the forts, and over the drawbridges of the gorge to La Guayra, the port; and on the mole a galley with slaves was in waiting to take them out to the little brigantine. But the envoy asked for another half-hour of delay.
"I have a small outstanding account which it would please me to close," said he, "before leaving your very desirable town;" and asked that the captain of the port might be notified of his presence.
The fellow came up, nothing loath, and saw some very pretty swordsmanship before he was run through the shoulder; and then, distributing a handsome largess of pearls to the escort who had brought them down, the envoy and Master Laughan were rowed off to their little brigantine, and so once more to sea, and further adventuring.
The Prince was thoughtful and full of sighs; but the humble secretary thought that the perilous sea had never before looked so friendly and pleasant.