“D’ye not see? That ship will be the Silver Heron.”
He looked at her. “’S life!” said he, “I reck little whether it be the silver heron or the golden grasshopper. What odds?”
“It is Sir John’s ship—Sir John Killigrew’s,” she explained. “She was all but ready to sail when... when you came to Arwenack. He was for the Indies. Instead—don’t you see?—out of love for me he will have come after me upon a forlorn hope of overtaking you ere you could make Barbary.”
“God’s light!” said Sakr-el-Bahr, and fell to musing. Then he raised his head and laughed. “Faith, he’s some days late for that!”
But the jest evoked no response from her. She continued to stare at him with those eager yet timid eyes.
“And yet,” he continued, “he comes opportunely enough. If the breeze that has fetched him is faint, yet surely it blows from Heaven.”
“Were it...?” she paused, faltering a moment.
Then, “Were it possible to communicate with him?” she asked, yet with hesitation.
“Possible—ay,” he answered. “Though we must needs devise the means, and that will prove none so easy.”
“And you would do it?” she inquired, an undercurrent of wonder in her question, some recollection of it in her face.