"I am blind," he gasped. "Leave me." But Nanna would not give over, tugging at the man's weight until she had him to his feet again, with a convenient railing at his back. She picked up some water from the gutter with her hands held cup-wise, and dashed the liquid in his face. Piers Minor straightened up, and from his eyes the darkness cleared away.
"Courage!" she said, and he smiled back at her.
There was the shining of the river; now they could see the pier and the boats of the shad-fishers lying alongside. Piers Minor cast off the largest and most seaworthy-looking of the lot, and, without troubling to bail out the standing water, he brought the craft broadside to the wharf and held out his hand to Nanna. But she, looking to the northward, where the gilded cupola of Arcadia House shone out against the sky, neither moved nor spoke.
The girl turned. "She is there," she said, and pointed to the north. "I must go to her—my little sister."
Piers Minor swung himself up on the wharf and seized her.
"You shall not," he said.
She tried to wrench herself free; she struck him full in the face. But Piers Minor only smiled grimly and held on the tighter. And then, to his astonishment, this tiger-cat became suddenly metamorphosed into a dove. Her breast heaved, and she turned her head away; he knew that she was weeping just like any other woman. Whereat Piers Minor smiled again, but not grimly, and held her a little closer.
"Listen," he said, and forced her gently to look at him. "It is impossible to reach Arcadia House; even now the fire is there before you. You must believe that Constans received the message and was able to get there in time. Believe it, because it is I who tell you."
She did believe, but, being a woman, she hesitated again—at the very brink of surrender.