“For myself I care not overmuch,” ended the minister. “I scorn not life, but think it at its worst well worth the living; yet when my God calls me, I will go as to a gala day and triumph. You are a soldier, Captain Percy, you and Diccon here, and know how to die. You too, my Lord Carnal, are a brave man, though a most wicked one. For us four, we can drink the cup, bitter though it be, with little trembling. But there is one among us”—His great voice broke, and he sat staring at the table.
The King's ward uncovered her eyes. “If I be not a man and a soldier, Master Sparrow,” she said simply, “yet I am the daughter of many valiant gentlemen. I will die as they died before me. And for me, as for you four, it will be only death,—naught else.” She looked at me with a proud smile.
“Naught else,” I said.
My lord started from his seat and strode over to the window, where he stood drumming his fingers against the casing. I turned toward him. “My Lord Carnal,” I said, “you were overheard last night when you plotted with the Spaniard.”
He recoiled with a gasp, and his hand went to his side, where it found no sword. I saw his eyes busy here and there through the cabin, seeking something which he might convert into a weapon.
“I am yet captain of this ship,” I continued. “Why I do not, even though it be my last act of authority, have you flung to the sharks, I scarcely know.”
He threw back his head, all his bravado returned to him. “It is not I that stand in danger,” he began loftily; “and I would have you remember, sir, that you are my enemy, and that I owe you no loyalty.”
“I am content to be your enemy,” I answered.
“You do not dare to set upon me now,” he went on, with his old insolent, boastful smile. “Let me cry out, make a certain signal, and they without will be here in a twinkling, breaking in the door”—“The signal set?” I said. “The mine laid, the match burning? Then 't is time that we were gone. When I bid the world good-night, my lord, my wife goes with me.”
His lips moved and his black eyes narrowed, but he did not speak.