"You may pass muster for a man. What is your name?"
"Anton."
"You have muscle enough to strike a good blow on occasion, but I know naught of your courage. And your companion there, what of him? Step into the light and let me look at you. How are you called?"
"Grigosie, if it please you, Captain."
He stepped out of the shadow as he spoke, and with his arms folded across his breast, threw back his head defiantly, as though such inspection were little to his taste. He was a lad in figure and in voice. His face was innocent of even the down of dawning manhood. His limbs were clean cut and supple, but they looked too young for stern endurance. His dress was similar to his companion's save that it was green in color, and he wore a cap of green drawn down to his brows.
"You're a good-looking boy enough," laughed Ellerey, "but Heaven forgive her Majesty. Does she think I am bent on some summer picnic that she sends a child to bear me company?"
"We are wont to go together, Captain. Grigosie is a good scout, and
I warrant is likely to prove useful," said Anton.
"For cooking and bedmaking maybe. We shall have little opportunity for either one or the other," [illustration: "YOU WILL PARDON ME COUNTESS!">[ Blank Page "Nor should I do either of them except of my own will," said the lad.
"A stroke or two of the whip would make you tell a different tale," said Ellerey; "and you may thank your lucky fortune that I will not take you, for the whip would certainly follow."
"I have heard of Captain Ellerey," said the boy, "but never that he was a bully."