“My service to you, Lieutenant Alden, and I crave your pardon for what may have seemed surly silence under your first advances; but truth to tell, I am a little overborne with fatigue and annoyance”—
“Indeed, sir, you are fit to drop,” broke in Priscilla indignantly. “Here, sit you down in the roundabout chair, and say not a word more till I fetch you a cup of cordial-waters. John, do get rid of these Indians. I hate the sight of them! Let them go wait at Master Hopkins’s until the governor comes home to take order with them”—
But at this moment, and while Priscilla, half filling a small silver cup with Hollands gin slightly tempered with water, held it to the lips of the fainting man, the door suddenly opened, and Bradford, followed by Standish and Hobomoc, entered the room.
“My wife and Christian Penn sent me up to ask about—ah yes—why—Captain, this gentleman is—Your name, good sir?”
“My name is Sir Christopher Gardiner,” replied the captive, rallying his strength to reply with dignity. “And as you seem to recall, we met once before at my poor home in the Massachusetts. Well enough I know that my hospitality then was not such as befits either your quality or mine, and yet methinks your response is even less courteous.”
“We knew not who the fugitive might be of whom the Indians told us,” returned Bradford gravely. “But evil entreated though you seem to have been, your case would have been even worse had it not been for us.”
“They went about to kill you, man,” broke in Standish bluntly. “And if the hound the Bay Colony laid upon your track had not fallen in with one of our own Indians, you had long since tumbled across your own camp-fire, with an arrow through your heart.”
“Say you so, Captain,” replied Gardiner faintly. “’Tis but another proof that a man seldom knows his best friends; but why do the Bay people seek my life?”
“That is best known to yourself, sir,” began Bradford somewhat severely; but Priscilla Alden interposed,—
“I pray your pardon, Master Bradford, but this man needs care and tendance rather than catechizing just now. Look but at those arms and hands!”