“Father, father,” she cried, and taking his head and shoulders on her breast, she crooned over him and kissed him, murmuring words of passionate mourning, more like a mother than a daughter.
“Grace,” said he, and his voice was so small that my breathing, by contrast, seemed loud and obtrusive. “I am far spent, and the end of all things is come for me. Listen, then, to my last words.”
And she bent over him till her ear was at his lips.
“In the blinding fog,” continued he, “we drifted as the ocean currents took us, this way and that, carrying us we knew not whither—drifting to our doom. The galley, before we could make shift to change her course, scraped against the sides of an English ship—we just saw her black hull in the mist, and then we were on her.”
The weak voice became weaker still.
“It was too big a ship for us, yet there was but one thing to do. I have ever said that the boldest thing is the safest thing—indeed, the only thing. So I ordered the boarders forward, and bade the rowers take their weapons and follow on.”
The dimming eyes grew luminous and bright.
“It was a gallant fight,” he said, and his accents took on a little of their old firmness, “but she was too strong for us. In the attempt we lost several of our men, and two were taken prisoners. We were beaten off. Just as the vessels drove apart, and the barque was lost in the mist, a stray shot from an arquebus hit me in the thigh—and I know I cannot survive.”
“What was the name of the ship?” asked Grace.