He looked at Diccon, but Diccon stood with his face to the sea. I thought we were to have a struggle, and I was sorry for it, but my lord could and did add discretion to a valor that I never doubted. He shrugged his shoulders, burst into a laugh, and turned to Mistress Percy.
“What can one do, lady, when one is doubly a prisoner, prisoner to numbers and to beauty? E'en laugh at fate, and make the best of a bad job. Here, sir! Some day it shall be the point!”
He drew his rapier from its sheath, and presented the hilt to me. I took it with a bow, and handed it to Sparrow.
The King's ward had risen, and now leant against the bank of sand, her long dark hair, half braided, drawn over either shoulder, her face marble white between the waves of darkness.
“I do not know that I shall ever come back,” I said, stopping before her. “May I kiss your hand before I go?”
Her lips moved, but she did not speak. I knelt and kissed her clasped hands. They were cold to my lips. “Where are you going?” she whispered. “Into what danger are you going? I—I—take me with you!”
I rose, with a laugh at my own folly that could have rested brow and lips on those hands, and let the world wag. “Another time,” I said. “Rest in the sunshine now, and think that all is well. All will be well, I trust.”
A few minutes later saw me almost upon the party gathered about the grave. The grave had received that which it was to hold until the crack of doom, and was now being rapidly filled with sand. The crew of deep-dyed villains worked or stood or sat in silence, but all looked at the grave, and saw me not. As the last handful of sand made it level with the beach, I walked into their midst, and found myself face to face with the three candidates for the now vacant captaincy.
“Give you good-day, gentlemen,” I cried. “Is it your captain that you bury or one of your crew, or is it only pezos and pieces of eight?”