Off he went unanswering, leaving me at gaze across an unbroken sea with
a heart heavy as lead.
"Poor fellow! He will get over it," said I.
"Another hath need o' the same medicine," came a voice.
I wheeled, expecting arrest.
A tall, wiry man, with coal-black hair and deep-set eyes and a scar
across his swarth skin, smiled pleasantly down at me.
"Now that you have them safely off," said he, still smiling, "better
begone yourself."
"I'll thank you for your advice when I ask it, sir," said I, suspicious
of the press-gang infesting that port. Involuntarily I caught at my
empty sword-belt.
"Permit me," proffered the gentleman, with a broader smile, handing out
his own rapier.
"Sir," said I, "your pardon, but the press-gang have been busy of late."
"And the sheriffs may be busy to-day," he laughed. "Black arts don't
open stone walls, Ramsay."
And he sent the blade clanking home to its scabbard. His surtout
falling open revealed a waistcoat of buckskin. I searched his face.
"M. de Radisson!"
"My hero of rescues," and he offered his hand. "And my quondam
nephew," he added, laughing; for his wife was a Kirke of the English
branch, and my aunt was married to Eli.
"Eli Kirke cannot know you are here, sir--"
"Eli Kirke _need_ not know," emphasized Radisson dryly.
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