So the suitor received permission to woo his bride openly, and Gillian presently so shone with jewels, and so rustled about in gorgeous raiment, that matrons and maids suspended their work to run to the doors and watch her as she passed by.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE HILT OF A RAPIER.
“Voysye! Hold on, man! Here, come along back!”
“Belay your jaw, you landlubber! I’m bound to overhaul that clipper before she gets away! Cast off your grapnel, or”—
And twisting his arm away from Francis Billington, with whom he had been drinking until both men had had more than enough, Richard Voysye, seaman of the Golden Fleece, set out to overtake the female figure which had just flitted past them in the twilight. Billington, not so tipsy as the sailor, lunged forward in pursuit, and once more grasping his arm exclaimed,—
“’Tis the young dame your captain is going to marry, I tell you, and ’twill go hard with the man that affronts her”—
“Hang the captain, and you too! There, then, you fool—take that!”