"Had he any idea who you were?" the other demanded.
"I thought he must know; but I can see now that he was simply making a fool of me for his own ends. If he had known, he surely wouldn't have sent for me to come ashore here."
"He certainly would not," agreed his companion with grim assurance, and they both fell silent again, each engrossed in his own overwhelming, embittered reflections.
"Dove knows nothing at all about you," said Farish M'Kissock presently, and Lord Jura looked up as if astonished at the sound of his voice.
"But—how do you know that, M'Kissock?" the latter inquired in a querulous tone, pulling nervously at his under-lip. "What are you doing here, in that queer rig-out? I don't understand. Where have you—"
"I've been just such another fool as yourself, my lord," said Farish M'Kissock, his voice vibrant with impotent, irrepressible anger. "It's worse than damnable to think—You'll scarcely believe that I've served under Dove in my time, but it's true enough. I was second mate on the Fer de Lance, long ago, when he called himself Captain Brown. And—I owe him a score as heavy as yours, ay, and heavier; a score I came here to pay. But I was too hasty, and—he got the better of me at the start; I was no match for the two of them—he had the man Slyne on his side." His breath almost failed him and he fell to coughing convulsively.
"And—what has brought them to Loquhariot?" the other asked in utter amazement as soon as he could make himself heard. But Farish M'Kissock sat wheezing and gasping for some little time before answering that.
"They have come with one whom they call the Lady Josceline Justice," said he at length, glancing askance at his companion. "Slyne's minded to marry her now—and so lay hands on all that is yours."
The Earl of Jura gazed blankly at his burst boots. His mind was all in a muddle. The stokehold of the Olive Branch, and then its engine-room, seemed to have sapped whatever intelligence he might once have possessed. His belated release from slavery had left him with his wits benumbed and torpid.
"But, of course, they don't know that I—" he began, his face brightening, and then broke off. "Where did they get hold of her, M'Kissock?"