“Does she display no further device?” he asked.
Larocque turned at the question. “Ay,” he answered, “a narrow blue pennant on her mizzen is charged with a white bird—a stork, I think.”
“A stork?” echoed Sakr-el-Bahr thoughtfully. He could call to mind no such English blazon, nor did it seem to him that it could possibly be English. He caught the sound of a quickly indrawn breath behind him. He turned to find Rosamund standing in the entrance, not more than half concealed by the curtain. Her face showed white and eager, her eyes were wide.
“What is’t?” he asked her shortly.
“A stork, he thinks,” she said, as though that were answer enough.
“I’ faith an unlikely bird,” he commented. “The fellow is mistook.”
“Yet not by much, Sir Oliver.”
“How? Not by much?” Intrigued by something in her tone and glance, he stepped quickly up to her, whilst below the chatter of voices increased.
“That which he takes to be a stork is a heron—a white heron, and white is argent in heraldry, is’t not?”
“It is. What then?”