"Nay, sir, you will not do such cold-blooded murder," cried the secretary, catching the hand of Kyd, and kneeling at his feet. "Spare! oh, spare his life, and I will be thy slave!"
"Silence, boy! and you, sir, if you would use your speech, husband it in words of prayer. Thy time has come as surely as the moon now shines in the east."
"All ready, sir!" said Lawrence, coming aft a step or two and addressing his captain.
"Will you walk to the gangway, sir, or shall my men conduct you?"
"Farewell, my faithful Edwin," he said, with manly dignity, tenderly embracing the youth. "We shall in a few minutes meet beyond the skies!"
The youth cast himself into his arms, and the next moment Fitzroy unclasped his hold and laid him upon the deck insensible.
"I am ready!" he said, calmly.
"Perhaps you have a last request to make," said the pirate chief, sarcastically; "doubtless some wish is lurking in your breast, which, unexpressed, will add bitterness to death! If so, intrust it to me. I'll be its executor. Perhaps," he continued, in the same tone, "you have a ring, a lock of hair, some tender love-token to be returned to the giver. Perchance some maiden will ask how Fitzroy died. I'll bear to her a message! Ere to-morrow night I shall see the peerless Kate of Bellamont; she'll love me for bringing it, and perhaps yield the pressure of her haughty lips. I've had love favours on my own account of the willing maid ere now."
"Villain! thou liest!" cried the young man, goaded to phrensy by his words, and only restrained from springing upon him by the weight of the irons which shackled him.
"Ask her when you meet hereafter in the other world, for you meet no more in this!"