'Sit down, Harry!' cried Frank; 'I will have no brawling here.'
Harry took no notice, but stood with his breath coming very fast and hard just as before.
'Sit down, sir,' thundered our captain; 'wilt mutiny in my own cabin? Hark ye, sir, on my ship there is no difference between a gentleman and a cook's boy when it comes to giving orders. Sit down now, and take your hand from that weapon, or I shall presently take order to have you in irons.'
'You are right, Frank, quite right,' said Harry with an effort as he slowly sat himself down. 'But how can you have done us this unkindness?'
'Frank, Frank,' said I, finding voice at last, 'you know not what you have done.' With that I tottered to the seat on the opposite side of the table to Harry. I felt undone and crushed. My long grieving and much brooding on my shame had told on me more than I guessed. And now to find after my cowardly flight I had fallen into a trap a hundredfold more dreadful than that I had sought to escape, to find my new hopes shattered at a blow and this awful trial before me, was more than I could bear, and in utter broken despair I buried my face in my arms upon the table to hide my tears.
'I know well enough what I have done,' said Frank, after he had left us thus in silence for some moments. 'Do you think that when two good lads, fast friends, come to me each separately from the side of one fair lady, haggard and woe-begone, and tell me that they want to journey they care not whither, so long as it be far from England, do you think then I know not what it means? Why, man, I have a score such aboard now. For though many think that the greater the thief and blasphemer the better the soldier, yet say I for my work give me, next to him who sails for love of God, the honest lad that sails for love of a lass. As I judge they are half and half aboard our ships now. So think you I could not read the old tale, when I saw it writ so plain? And had it not been so, I should yet have known; for there comes to me an honest worthy soldier who knew better than I.
'"Captain Drake," says he, "here is a mighty storm blowing between two valiant gentlemen, who after long and loving consort have parted company, so that they cannot come together again without most nice navigation. I pray you take command," says he.
'"How do they bear, Sergeant?" says I.
'"Cry you mercy there, captain," says he; "I am no pilot of gentlemen's quarrels, yet I can give you certain just observations, whence peradventure you may take their bearings yourself."'
Therewith Frank repeated the whole story as he had it from the Sergeant, till he came to Harry's flight from the inn. Then in a low earnest voice he told clearly, as though it were passing before his eyes, what the Sergeant had seen me do outside with Harry's rapier. I felt so shamed to hear it now that I would have stayed him, but felt I could not speak.