He was—where she had vowed him. Her curse had held true. With a cry she slipped from the captain's arm, sprang from the coursier, and threw her arms about the neck of the worn and bleeding slave!
CHAPTER XLIV.
VALENTINE AND HER VENGEANCE
But as he watched, a strange drawn look appeared on the countenance of Francis Agnew the Scot. And there came that set look to his mouth, which had enabled him to endure so many things.
"The lad also!" he muttered, "and I had begun to love him!"
For it was not given to Francis Agnew, more than to any other son of Adam, to divine the good when the appearance is evil. And with his elbows on his knees he thought of Claire, of her hope deferred, and of the waiting of the sick heart. She believed this man faithful. And now, would even her father's return (if ever he did return) make up to her for this most foul treachery?
To John d'Albret he spoke no further word. He asked no question, as they rested side by side during the night-watches. The stammered explanation which the Abbé John began after Valentine's departure was left unanswered. Francis Agnew had learned a great secret—how to keep silence. It is an excellent gift.
The ancient, high-piled town loomed up tier above tier, white and grey and purple under the splendours of the moon. The Abbé John took it in bit by bit—the black ledges and capes with the old Moorish castles, and later corsair watch-towers, the flaring phare at the mouth of the harbour, the huge double swell of the cathedral crowning all, the long lines of the arch-episcopal palace on the slope, the vineyards and oliveyards—all stood up blanched and, as it were, blotched in pen and ink under the silver flood of light and the steady milky blue arch of the sky. Such was Tarragona upon that night of sleepless silence.
The morning brought a new order, grateful to both.