A slender figure slipped out from the shadow of a doorway and confronted them. It was Esmay, and she spoke with serene gravity.
"Since you and Ulick are friends you ought to make it up with me also. But not unless you really want to," she added, hastily.
Constans smiled with youthful cynicism.
"Of course," he answered, magnificently condescending. "You are a woman, and knew no better."
She snatched her hand away. "Yes, I am a woman, Master Constans, and some day you will know what that means." She moved away, majestically as does a goddess, conscious of her power but magnanimously refraining from using it. Constans and Ulick laughed after the manner of men-kind who find it easy to disbelieve in what they do not understand. Then, with a long hand-grip, they parted.
The canoe was still in its hiding-place underneath the ruined pier, and Constans's first care was to stow away in the stern-locker the two volumes of the scientific cyclopædia that he had been reading at the time of his capture. Ulick of his own volition had stolen the books from the library hall, and had put them into Constans's hands at the moment of parting. They made a heavy load for him to carry, but what a precious burden it was and how gladly he assumed it! For these were the keys of power.
As Constans paddled out into the stream he heard the steady thumping of oars in rowlock. He shoved back into the shadow of the pier just as a great galley filled with men came foaming down the river. Constans could see that it was a war-vessel of the largest size, for there were full sixty oars on a side arranged in two banks. The figure-head was the representation of a black swan, and on the poop-deck stood the slight, graceful figure of a man wearing a plumed hat. Constans saw him remove the cigar from his lips as he turned to give an order. Instantly the port-oars held and backed, and the galley, swinging round on her heel, headed up-stream again, passing within fifty yards of Constans's hiding-place. The boy's bow was in his hand, but he had not attempted to fit an arrow to the string. "It will come—the time," he said, under his breath.
Constans stared gravely after the Black Swan as she drove along. But for the best of good-fortune he might now be tugging at a heavy ashen oar, with the lash of the deck-master striping his back. Ulick, Esmay—yes, he had much to remember.
Two hours later he had scaled the wall of Croye, without being discovered by the sleepy sentinels, and was safe on his pallet of corn-husks in Messer Hugolin's attic.