“The pale gentleman lying in his bed,” said the King.
“Are you the master of the little vessel that Colonel Phelips promised to engage for my lord?” asked Lady Farnham.
“Ay, ay, ma’am,” said the mariner. “She’ve been lying three days past in Pyler’s Cove, a short sea-mile up the beach. When I was here a day or so agone, ye hadn’t touched this port. I should ha’ come last night again, but we couldn’t ha’ put to sea in sich a gale as that.”
“I was expecting you anxiously,” said Lady Farnham. “Indeed, so anxious did I become, that in the middle of the night I went forth to seek you, but saw you not.”
“I daresay I was under hatches then,” said the sailor. “But to-night at ten o’clock the wind and tide should be fair enough. We can get off then.”
A great hope suddenly beaconed in the woman’s face.
“Oh! if you can, good sailor,” she exclaimed, impulsively, “I shall never be able to requite you.”
Even as she spoke, however, there came a thought that dashed it to the earth. There was her husband. He was too weak to move.
“My lord is stricken,” she said. “He cannot walk a step. What is to be done, good sailor?”
The mariner scratched his head.