Master Lionel stopped and faced the other squarely, his shoulders to his horse. They were quite alone in as lonely a spot as any conspirator could desire. Behind him stretched the empty beach, ahead of him the ruddy cliffs that rise gently to the wooded heights of Arwenack.
“I’ll be quite plain and open with you, Master Leigh. Peter Godolphin was my friend. Sir Oliver is no more than my half-brother. I would give a deal to the man who would abstract Sir Oliver secretly from the doom that hangs over him, and yet do the thing in such a way that Sir Oliver should not thereby escape the punishment he deserves.”
It was strange, he thought, even as he said it, that he could bring his lips so glibly to utter words that his heart detested.
The captain looked grim. He laid a finger upon Master Lionel’s velvet doublet in line with that false heart of his.
“I am your man,” said he. “But the risk is great. Yet ye say that ye’ld give a deal....”
“Yourself shall name the price,” said Lionel quickly, his eyes burning feverishly, his cheeks white.
“Oh I can contrive it, never fear,” said the captain. “I know to a nicety what you require. How say you now: if I was to carry him overseas to the plantations where they lack toilers of just such thews as his?” He lowered his voice and spoke with some slight hesitation, fearing that he proposed perhaps more than his prospective employer might desire.
“He might return,” was the answer that dispelled all doubts on that score.
“Ah!” said the skipper. “What o’ the Barbary rovers, then! They lack slaves and are ever ready to trade, though they be niggardly payers. I never heard of none that returned once they had him safe aboard their galleys. I ha’ done some trading with them, bartering human freights for spices and eastern carpets and the like.”
Master Lionel breathed hard. “’Tis a horrible fate, is’t not?”