My lord and I bowed to each other profoundly. Rolfe with my sword and Master Pory with my lord’s stepped aside to measure the blades. Dr. Bohun, muttering something about the feverishness of the early air, wrapped his cloak about him, and huddled in among the roots of a gigantic cedar. I stood with my back to the church, and my face to the red water between us and the illimitable forest; my lord opposite me, six feet away. He was dressed again splendidly in black and scarlet, colours he much affected, and, with the dark beauty of his face and the arrogant grace with which he stood there waiting for his sword, made a picture worth looking upon.
Rolfe and the Secretary came back to us. “If you kill him, Ralph,” said the former in a low voice, as he took my doublet from me, “you are to put yourself in my hands and do as you are bid.”
“Which means that you will try to smuggle me north to the Dutch. Thanks, friend, but I’ll see the play out here.”
“You were ever obstinate, self-willed, reckless—and the man most to my heart,” he continued. “Have your way, in God’s name, but I wish not to see what will come of it! All’s ready, Master Secretary.”
Very slowly that worthy stooped down and examined the ground, narrowly and quite at his leisure. “I like it not, Master Rolfe,” he declared at length. “Here is a molehill, and there a fairy ring.”
“I see neither,” said Rolfe. “It looks as smooth as a table. But we can easily shift under the cedars, where there is no grass.”
“Here’s a projecting root,” announced the Secretary, when the new ground had been reached.
Rolfe shrugged his shoulders, but we moved again.
“The light comes jaggedly through the branches,” objected my lord’s second. “Better try the open again.”
Rolfe uttered an exclamation of impatience, and my lord stamped his foot on the ground. “What is this foolery, sir?” the latter cried fiercely. “The ground’s well enough, and there’s sufficient light to die by.”