"The girls have been very kind to me. The youngest one came to me in tears, and with Lacelle's help—Do you know that Lacelle is here?" I nodded. "She told me this plan of her father's. She it was who brought me here this evening, and she says that she will do all in her power to aid me. She knows of a place where she can hide me, she says, but how to get me away later she does not know. She thinks that her cousin Geffroy will aid her. She says when things get to the worst that she will take me to this hiding place. I have given her Solomon for her kindness to me."
"Where is it?" I asked—"the hiding place that you speak of?"
"I do not know," said Cynthia mournfully.
I was furious at the idea of that old wretch having made these plans for Cynthia, but his plan for me struck me as most ludicrous, so that at one moment I was laughing convulsively and the next foaming at the mouth with rage.
"Dearest," I said, "whatever you do, keep friends with this girl, this daughter of Christophe's. She will help you, I am sure. Have you your dagger still?"
She drew it from the folds of her dress.
"If the worst comes to the worst," said I, "be sure and use it. Unless they kill me, you must know that I am always trying to devise some scheme to rescue you." I felt for her hand. "Do you wear our wedding ring, Cynthia?"
I heard a faint "Yes." I pressed her fingers in mine, and found the little band that I had taken from the pirates' cave still there. I drew nearer. For one delicious moment she allowed her head to rest upon my shoulder. I pressed a kiss upon her cheek, the first that I had been allowed to give my own wife, and I arose as strong as Hercules.
"I can do anything now," said I. "I must tell you my secret hurriedly. I have told the King that I can make a ring like the one he wears, only it will be a ring of much more power. The ring that I have—the one you found on the beach—is, I am certain, the one which was lost by Mauresco, his favourite, who gave it to Christophe, and then stole it away again."
"What! that handsome pirate?" asked Cynthia.