The catch in her voice told me she breathed fast.
He laughed, with that soft boisterousness that marked his merriment.
"Your mad Irishman is no king, but he has crossed my path enough. Next time he dies."
"Because he has tried to serve me!"
"Because he is in my way. Reason enough for me."
The door knob was in my hand. All I had to do was to open it and shoot the man dead. But what after that? His men would swarm down and murder me before the eyes of my love. And she would be left alone with a pack of wolves which had already tasted blood.
It was the hardest ordeal of my life to keep quiet while the fellow pressed his hateful suit, pushed it with the passionate ardor of the Slav, regardless of her tears, her despair, and her helplessness.
For an hour—to make a guess at the time—she fought with all the weapons a woman has at command, fending him off as best she could with tears and sighs and entreaties.
Then I heard a man stumbling down the ladder and moved aside. If he should turn my way I was a dead man, for he must come plump against me. He knocked on the door of the cabin.
Bothwell opened and whispered with him a moment, then excused himself to his cousin, locked the door, and followed the sailor up to the deck.