The one they called Paradise sighed. “It is a thousand pities that there is not amongst us some one of so preeminent that faction should hide its head before it. But to the work in hand, gentlemen.”
They gathered closer around the yawning grave, and some began to lift the corpse. As for me, I withdrew as noiselessly as an Indian from my lair of grass, and, hidden by the heaped-up sand, made off across the point and down the beach to where a light curl of smoke showed that some one was mending the fire I had neglected. It was Sparrow, who alternately threw on driftwood and seaweed and spoke to madam, who sat at his feet in the blended warmth of fire and sunshine. Diccon was roasting the remainder of the oysters he had gathered the night before, and my lord stood and stared with a frowning face at the nine-mile distant mainland. All turned their eyes upon me as I came up to the fire.
“A little longer, Captain Percy, and we would have had out a search warrant,” began the minister cheerfully. “Have you been building a bridge?”
“If I build one,” I said, “it will be a perilous one enough. Have you looked seaward?”
“We waked but a minute agone,” he answered. As he spoke, he straightened his great form and lifted his face from the fire to the blue sea. Diccon, still on his knees at his task, looked too; and my lord, turning from his contemplation of the distant kingdom of Accomac; and Mistress Percy, one hand shading her eyes, the slender fingers of the other still immeshed in her long dark hair which she had been braiding. They stared at the ship in silence until my lord laughed.
“Conjure us on board at once, captain,” he cried. “We are thirsty.”
I drew the minister aside. “I am going up the beach, beyond that point, again; you will one and all stay here. If I do not come back, do the best you can, and sell her life as dearly as you can. If I come back,—you are quick of wit and have been a player; look that you take the cue I give you!”
I returned to the fire, and he followed me, amazement in his face. “My Lord Carnal,” I said, “I must ask you for your sword.”
He started, and his black brows drew together. “Though the fortunes of war have made me in some sort your captive, sir,” he said at last, and not without dignity, “I do not see, upon this isle to which we are all prisoners, the need of so strong testimony to the abjectness of my condition, nor deem it generous”—
“We will speak of generosity another day, my lord,” I interrupted. “At present I am in a hurry. That you are my prisoner in verity is enough for me, but not for others. I must have you so in seeming as well as in truth. Moreover, Master Sparrow is weaponless, and I must needs disarm an enemy to arm a friend. I beg that you will give what else we must take.”