And the master-at-arms, who very characteristically had gone forward to berth with the sailors, came aft as the men on deck passed the word for him.
"Will you tell this lady," said Wat, "what you know of my acquaintance with the Little Marie?"
Whereupon, soberly and plainly, like a soldier, John Scarlett told his tale. But for all the effect it had upon the listeners he might just as well have spoken it to the solan-geese diving in the bay. Wat saw the unbelief settle deeper on the face of Roger McGhie, and the very demon of jealousy and malice wink from under the eyelids of my Lady Wellwood.
"I have a question to ask you, my noble captain of various services," said Barra, "a question concerning this girl and your gallant companion. What did you first think when this Marie joined you with the horses—in page's dress, as I have heard you say—and what when she told you that she had stabbed your friend's enemy and hers to the death?"
"I thought what any other man would think," answered Scarlett, brusquely.
"And afterwards among the sand-dunes of Lis you discovered that all this devotion arose merely from noble, pure, unselfish, platonic love?"
The old soldier was more than a little perplexed by Barra's phrases, which he did not fully understand.
"Yes," he answered at last, with a hesitation which told more against his story than all he had said before.
Barra was quick to seize his advantage.
"You see how faithfully these comrades stick to each other—how touching is such fidelity. The intention is so excellent, even when truth looks out in spite of them through the little joins in the patchwork."