I took the bauble from him silently, stupidly, and then unconsciously bore it to my lips. Slowly the cruel truth dawned upon me as I looked at the jewel. It seemed as though my breast were bursting with the emotions that flooded up from that secret corner in my soul in which man hides the things he holds most holy. What would I not have given for woman’s tears to have wept out upon it all the tenderness in my heart? I could only bend over it reverently, dry-eyed, mutely suffering. But I had undergone all this torture before, and the certainty now that she had died seemed to make no further enduring wound. I sat at last, looking at Emola as he told how the ring had come to him from one of his braves, who had exchanged it for some silver neck-pieces. After the first shock of this dreadful discovery, I seemed rather stupefied than aught else, with no capacity for great grief nor any great sensation of any kind.
When he understood, the Paracousi came and put his hand upon my shoulder, and this aroused me. He indicated by pointing that he would give me the ring which I still held in my hand. I thanked him with a look and a hand-clasp and got upon my feet, stretching my limbs, arising from my grief-stupor.
When he had finished speaking I turned to the Chevalier De Brésac, saying to him:
“My friend, I will follow wherever you will lead.”
He took me by one hand joyfully, and Job Goddard with gruff heartiness seized the other. Then we three, of no religion, but made one by suffering and the loss of those three persons we loved the best, took an oath, with the grave Paracousi for witness, that not while we lived would we rest until we had seen our enemies visited with vengeance by fire and the sword.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
IN WHICH WE JOURNEY TO PARIS.
If I have dwelt upon these events hitherto with great particularity, it is that there might be a record of all that passed and that the devotion of this seaman Goddard, a yeoman of England, should be known to all men. Of the Chevalier de Brésac, I need say nothing further at this time, since his public service is well known alike in England and France.