“I will tell you who you are,” he said, in a low, quick voice, pointing one hand at Loo. “I will tell you.” And his voice rose.
“You are the grandson of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. You are the Last Hope of the French. That is your heritage. Juliette! this is the King of France!”
Juliette turned and looked at him, with all the colour gone from her face. Then, instinctively, she dropped on one knee, and before he had understood, or could stop her, had raised his hand to her lips.
CHAPTER XV — THE TURN OF THE TIDE
“Tide’s a-turning, sir,” said a voice at the open doorway of the cabin, and Captain Clubbe turned his impassive face toward Dormer Colville, who looked oddly white beneath the light of the lamp.
Barebone had unceremoniously dragged his hand away from the hold of Juliette’s fingers. He made a step back and then turned toward the door at the sound of his shipmate’s well-known voice. He stood staring out into the darkness like one who is walking in his sleep. No one spoke, and through the open doorways no sound came to them but the song of the wind through the rigging.
At last Barebone turned, and there was no sign of fear or misgiving in his face. He looked at Clubbe, and at no one else, as if the Captain and he were alone in the cabin where they had passed so many years together in fair weather, to bring out that which is evil in a man, and foul, to evolve the good.
“What do you say?” he asked, in English, and he must have known that Captain Clubbe understood French better than he was ready to admit.