“Don’t ye fret about that, ma’am,” he said. “Diggory Fargus hath run too many cargoes in precarious plazen to be beat by a thing like that. I’ll bring three o’ my mates along wi’ a litter, at half-past nine o’ the clock. We should be able to bear the gentleman easy if we takes our time.”
“It is well thought on,” said the King.
“At half-past nine of the clock then, good sailor,” said the lady, fervently. “And may God requite you for your services. We will be in readiness.”
Diggory Fargus pulled his forelock and went downstairs in the company of the nervous landlord.
“Oh, Sire,” said the poor lady—the tears were come into her eyes,—“it is indeed a providence that the sailor is here at such a time. Wilt thou not come with us, too? Something clearly told me that if you spent this night, Sire, under this roof, you would be ta’en.”
“Madam, you are more than kind,” said the King, complaisantly. “We will consider it. Although we think we must not disappoint our other friends. They, too, have a boat chartered for us somewhere. But we shall see. On the one hand is our duty; on the other, our inclination.”
There was no misreading the lustre in the King’s face.
CHAPTER XIII
The Soldiers
WHEN the landlord had carefully and thankfully seen the sailor out of his house, he looked at the clock as one hardly daring to do so. It was still twenty minutes past seven. The landlord recoiled from it with a shock. He was in that state of tension which rejects the simple and natural. He was either dreaming a wild dream, or he was face to face with the supernatural. In his present extreme condition, both seemed possible.