Those eyes were soft, dark ones, such as, I think, our poets call "liquid," and they looked out at me from an oval face, dark and olive in complexion, over which the black hair curled in mighty becoming waves, though it was not all visible, since on his head he wore a beaver cap, looped up at one side with a steel buckle, and with, in it, a deep crimson feather--a hat that added extremely to his boyish beauty. For that he was a boy of almost tender years was certain. Upon his upper lip there was that soft down which is not a moustache, but tells only where some day a moustache will be; his colouring, too--a deep, rich red beneath the olive skin--proclaimed extreme youthfulness. But, what was even more agreeable than all, was the bright, buoyant smile with which he looked at me--a smile which flashed from those dark, soft eyes and trembled on the full, red lips, yet seemed strangely out of place here in this captured vessel, and upon the face of a prisoner--for such, indeed, he was.
But now--even as we were saluting of each other, and while I noticed the easy grace with which this youth took off his beaver hat--I noticed also the handsome satin coat he wore, the embroidered, open-worked linen collar, and the pretty lace at his sleeves; perceived, also, that his breeches were lined with camlet and faced with white taffeta. I spoke to him, saying:
"Sir, I am afraid this is but a rough visit which I pay. Yet, since I find you aboard this galleon, you must know what brings me here; must know that it and all her consorts have fallen into our power--the power of England and Holland."
"In faith, I know it very well," the young man answered. "Heavens, what a cannonading you kept up! Yet--though perhaps you may deem me heartless if I say so!--I cannot aver that I am desperate sick at the knowledge that you have drubbed France and Spain this morning. Carámba! I am not too much in love with either, though you find me a passenger here."
"Monsieur is not then either French or Spanish?" I hazarded, while he unstrapped his blade from its porte-epée and flung it on the cabin locker as though it wearied him. "Perhaps English, to wit. And of the West Indies? A passenger taking this ship as a means whereby to reach his native land?"
He looked at me with those soft dark eyes--I know not even now why they brought up the thought of velvet to my mind--paused a moment then said:
"Monsieur, I do protest you are a wizard, a conjuror, a geomancer. In truth you have hit it. I am English, though not by birth--but subject to England."
"I should scarce have thought, indeed," I ventured to say, "that monsieur was of English blood."
"No?" with a slight intonation. "And why not? I flatter myself that I have the English very well."
"You have it perfectly," I replied, making a little bow, "but scarce the English look. Now a Spaniard--a Frenchman--I would have ventured to say, judging by your appearance, to----"