Fool that I was, dolt that I was, not to have spoken then! But my tongue was tied, as with a ribbon of steel, and if one were to ask me why this was, I could not tell, nor can I now, looking back across the blunt edge of years. Yet here was such an opportunity, if I could have grasped it, but it passed.
Eva sang softly to me as I lay with my harness off on a couch, until I fell a-sleeping and a-dreaming, and all through the sleeping and the dreaming did I hear the sound of her singing, far off, indistinctly, and murmurous, like that of the brooks among the silent hills.
When I awoke, it was evening, and both she and Grace O’Malley were seated by my side. The storm had abated, and already a weak, watery moon was riding in the heavens, and, as I opened my eyes, its faint beams fell whitely upon the faces of my mistresses, so that to me, being still only half awake, they looked like spirits. I rose to a sitting posture, and felt that my strength had come back to me.
“Has your weariness left you?” asked Grace O’Malley, smiling kindly at me.
For answer I stretched my limbs and my body, and smiled at her without speaking, though the pain in my shoulder still troubled me, and I could not move without feeling it.
“While you have slept, Ruari,” she went on, “I have gone over as much of the galleon as might be in the hours of daylight at my disposal, and the riches in her are truly wonderful. Never saw I so great a store of all manner of things of value in a ship before. ’Tis a splendid spoil, and the merchants of Galway will have good cause to remember me, and Sir Nicholas will be beside himself with rage.”
“We have not yet finished with them or with Sir Nicholas,” said I. “The Capitana is not the only ship of the wine fleet.”
“Neither has Sir Nicholas done with us, I fear,” said Eva, sadly, “nor the people of Galway.”
“Sometimes it seems to me, Eva,” said Grace to her foster-sister, “as if you were only half an O’Malley.” Then she turned to me again. “Ruari, I have more to tell about the galleon. On board of her there is a chest of gold—all money of Spain, coined pieces, bearing the effigy of the late Emperor, Charles. Now, hearken! A strange, wild story goes with this chest of gold, and there is that in it which may concern us very closely.”