"I will go," Cyril said, "if you will lend me your arm. I should like to hear what the poor wretch has to say."
"He lies just below; the hatchway is but a few yards distant."
There had been no attempt to remove Cyril's clothes, and, by the aid of Lord Oliphant and of a sailor he called to his aid, he made his way below, and was led through the line of wounded, until a doctor, turning round, said,—
"This is the man who wishes to see you, Sir Cyril."
Although a line of lanterns hung from the beams, so nearly blind was he that Cyril could scarce distinguish the man's features.
"I have sent for you," the latter said faintly, "to tell you that if it hadn't been for your jumping down on to that fire-ship you would not have lived through this day's fight. I saw that you recognised me, and knew that, as soon as we went back, you would hand us over to the constables. So I made up my mind that I would run you through in the mêlée if we got hand to hand with the Dutchmen, or would put a musket-ball into you while the firing was going on. But when I saw you standing there with the flames round you, giving your life, as it seemed, to save the ship, I felt that, even if I must be hung for it, I could not bring myself to hurt so brave a lad; so there is an end of that business. Robert Ashford was killed by a gun that was knocked from its carriage, so you have got rid of us both. I thought I should like to tell you before I went that the brave action you did saved your life, and that, bad as I am, I had yet heart enough to feel that I would rather take hanging than kill you."
The last words had been spoken in a scarcely audible whisper. The man closed his eyes; and the doctor, laying his hand on Cyril's arm, said,—
"You had better go back to your hammock now, Sir Cyril. He will never speak again. In a few minutes the end will come."
Cyril spent a restless night. The wind was blowing strongly from the north, and the crews had hard work to keep the vessels off the shore. His wounds did not pain him much, but his hands, arms, face, and legs smarted intolerably, for his clothes had been almost burnt off him, and, refreshing as the sea-bath had been at the moment, it now added to the smarting of the wounds.
In the morning Prince Rupert came down to see him.