I looked up into her eyes, and read only kindness. "Yes," I muttered. But the effort of looking was so painful that I closed my eyes again with a sigh. Nevertheless, my memory of the events which had gone before my illness grew clearer, and I fumbled feebly for something which should have been at my side. "Where is--where is my sword?" I made shift to whisper.
She laughed. "Show it to him, Anne," she said; "what a never-die it is! There, Master Knight Errant, we did not forget to bring it off the field, you see!"
"But how," I murmured, "how did you escape?" I saw that there was no question of a prison. Her laugh was gay, her voice full of content.
"That is a long story," she answered kindly. "Are you well enough to hear it? You think you are? Then take some of this first. You remember that knave Philip striking you on the head with an oar as you got up? No? Well, it was a cowardly stroke, but it stood him in little stead, for we had drifted, in the excitement of the race, under the stern of the ship which you remember seeing a little before. There were English seamen on her; and when they saw three men in the act of boarding two defenseless women, they stepped in, and threatened to send Clarence and his crew to the bottom unless they sheered off."
"Ha!" I murmured. "Good!"
"And so we escaped. I prayed the captain to take us on board his ship, the Framlingham, and he did so. More, putting into Leigh on his way to the Nore, he took off my husband. There he stands, and when you are better he shall thank you."
"Nay, he will thank you now," said the tall man, rising and stepping to my berth with his head bent. He could not stand upright, so low was the deck. "But for you," he continued, his earnestness showing in his voice and eyes--the latter were almost too tender for a man's--"my wife would be now lying in prison, her life in jeopardy, and her property as good as gone. She has told me how bravely you rescued her from that cur in Cheapside, and how your presence of mind baffled the watch at the riverside. It is well, young gentleman. It is very well. But these things call for other returns than words. When it lies in her power my wife will make them; if not to-day, to-morrow, and if not to-morrow, the day after."
I was very weak, and his words brought the tears to my eyes. "She has saved my life already," I murmured.
"You foolish boy!" she cried, smiling down on me, her hand on her husband's shoulder. "You got your head broken in my defense. It was a great thing, was it not, that I did not leave you to die in the boat? There, make haste and get well. You have talked enough now. Go to sleep, or we shall have the fever back again."
"One thing first," I pleaded. "Tell me whither we are going."