The sun was high above the Welsh hills; the Peregrine had sheered her way through a hundred miles or more of fretted waters before her captain, in his hammock slung for the nonce near the men's quarters, stirred from his profound sleep—nature's kind restorer to healthy brain and limbs—after the ceaseless fatigue and emotions of the last thirty-six hours.

As he leaped to his feet out of the swinging canvas, the usual vigour of life coursing through every fibre of him, he fell to wondering, in half-awake fashion, at the meaning of the unwonted weight lurking in some back recess of consciousness.

Then memory, the ruthless, arose and buffeted his soul.

The one thing had failed him without which all else was as nothing; fate, and his own hot blood, had conspired to place his heart's desire beyond all reasonable hope. Certain phrases in Madeleine's letter crossed and re-crossed his mind, bringing now an unwonted sting of anger, now the old cruel pain of last night. The thought of the hateful complication introduced into his already sufficiently involved affairs by the involuntary kidnapping of his friend's wife filled him with a sense of impotent irritation, very foreign to his temper; and as certain looks and words of the unwished-for prisoner flashed back upon him, a hot colour rose, even in his solitude, to his wholesome brown cheek.

But in spite of all, in spite of reason and feeling alike his essential buoyancy asserted itself. He could not despair. He had not been given this vigour of soul and body to sit down under misfortune. Resignation was for the poor of heart; only cravens gave up while it was yet possible to act. His fair ship was speeding with him as he loved to feel her speed; around him spread the vast spaces in which his spirit rejoiced—salt sea and vaulted heavens; the full air of the open, the brisk dash of the wind filled him with physical exhilaration at every breath, and tingled in his veins; the sporting blood, which had come to him from generations of hunting squires, found all its craving satisfied in this coursing across the green ocean fields, and the added element of danger was as the sting of the brine to his palate. What—despair now? with his perilous enterprise all but accomplished, the whole world, save one country, before him, and Madeleine unwed! Another might, but not Jack Smith; not Hubert Cochrane!

He was actually trolling out the stave of a song as he sprang up the companion ladder after his rough breakfast in the galley, but the sound expired at the sight of the distant flutter of a woman's scarf in the stern of the ship. He halted and ran his fingers through his crisp hair with an expressive gesture of almost comical perplexity; all would be plain sailing enough, with hope at the prow again, but for this—he stamped his foot to choke down the oath of qualification—this encumbrance. Adrian's wife and Madeleine's sister, as such entitled to all honour, all care, and devotion; and yet, as such again, hideously, doubly unwelcome to him!

As he stood, biting his lips, while the gorgeous sunshine of the young spring morning beat down upon his bare head, the brawny figure of the mate, his mahogany-tinted face wrinkled into as stiff a grin as if it had been indeed carved out of the wood in question, intervened between his abstracted gaze and the restless amber beyond.

"It's a fine day, sir," by way of opening conversation.

The irrepressible satisfaction conveyed by the wide display of tobacco-stained teeth, by the twinkle in the hard, honest eyes called up a queer, rueful grimace to the other man's face.

"Do you know, Curwen," he said, "that you brought me the wrong young lady last night?"

The sailor jumped back in amazement. "The wrong young lady, sir," staring with starting, incredulous eyeballs, "the wrong, young lady!" here he clapped his thigh, "Well of all—the wrong young lady! Are you quite sure, sir?"

Captain Jack laughed aloud. But it was with a bitter twist at the corners of his lips.

"Well I'm——," said poor Curwen. All his importance and self-satisfaction had left him as suddenly as the starch a soused collar. He scanned his master's face with almost pathetic anxiety.

"Oh, I don't blame you—you did your part all right. Why, I myself fell into the same mistake, and we had not much time for finding it out, had we? The lady you see—the lady—she is the other lady's sister and she came with a message. And so we carried her off before we knew where we were—or she either," added Captain Jack as a mendacious after thought.

"Well I'm——," reiterated Curwen who then rubbed his scrubby, bristling chin, scratched his poll and finally broke into another grin—this time of the kind classified as sheepish.

"And what'll be to do now?"

"By the God that made me, I haven't a notion! We must take all the care of her we can, of course. Serve her her meals in her cabin, as was arranged, and see that she is attended to, just as the other young lady would have been you know, only that I think she had better be served alone, and I shall mess downstairs as usual. And then if we can leave her at St. Malo, we shall. But it must be in all safety, Curwen, for it's a terrible responsibility. Happily we have now the time to think. Meanwhile I have slept like a log and she—I see is astir before me."

"Lord bless you, sir, she has been up these two hours! Walking the deck like a sailor, and asking about things and enjoying them like. Ah, she is a rare lady, that she is! And it is the wrong one—well this is a go! And I was remarking to Bill Baxter, just now, that it was just our captain's luck to have found such a regular sailor's young woman, so I said—begging pardon for the word. And not more than he is worth, says he, and so said I also. And she the wrong lady after all! Well, it's a curious thing, sir, nobody could be like to guess it from her. She's a well-plucked one, with her wound and all. She made me look at it this morning, when I brought her a cup of coffee and a bite: 'You're old enough to be my father,' says she, as pretty as can be, 'so you shall be doctor as well as lady's maid; and, if you've got a girl of your own, it'll be a story to tell her by the fire at night, when you're home again,' so she said; and never winced when I put my great fingers on her arm. I was all of a tremble, I declare, with her a smiling up at me, but the wound—it's doing finely; healing as nice as ever I see, and not a sign of sickness on her. The very lady as I was saying, for our captain—but here she comes."

This was an unwontedly long speech for Curwen; and, silent again, he effaced himself discreetly, just in time to avoid the angry ejaculation that had sprung to his captain's lips, but not without a backward glance of admiration at the tall, alert figure now bearing down in their direction with steps already firmly balanced to the movement of the ship.

At a little distance from Captain Jack, Molly paused as if to scrutinise the horizon, and enjoy the invigorating atmosphere. In reality her heart was beating fast, her breath came short; and the gaze she flung from the faint outline of coast upon one side to the vast monotony of sparkling sea upon the other conveyed no impression to her troubled mind. The next instant he was by her side. As she smiled at him, he noticed that her face was pale, and her eyes darkly encircled.

"Ah, madam," said he, as he drew close and lifted his hand to his head, with a gesture of formal courtesy that no doubt somewhat astonished a couple of his men who were watching the group with covert smiles and nudges, being as yet unaware of the misadventure, "you relieve my mind of anxiety. How is the arm? Does it make you suffer much? No! You must be strong indeed."

"Yes, I am strong," answered she, and flushed, and looked out across the sea, inhaling the air with dilated nostrils.

Within her, her soul was crying out to him. It was as if there was a tide there, as fierce and passionate as the waves around her, all bearing, straining to him, and this with a struggle and flow so resistless, that she could neither remember the past, nor measure the future, but only feel herself carried on, beaten and tossed upon these great waters, like a helpless wreck.

"I trust you are well attended to," began the man constrainedly again. "I fear you will have to endure much discomfort. I had reckoned——." Here he halted galled by the thought of what it was he had reckoned upon, the thought of the watchful love that was to have made of the little ship a very nest for his bride, of the exquisite joy it was to have harboured! And he set his teeth at fate.

She played for a while with her little finger tips upon the rail, then turned her gaze, full and bold, upon him.

"I do not complain," she said.

He bowed gravely. "We will do our best for you, and if you will take patience, the time will pass at last, as all time passes. I have a few books, they shall be brought into your cabin. In three days we shall be in St. Malo—There, if you like——" he hesitated, embarrassed.

"There!" echoed Lady Landale with her eyes still fixed upon his downcast face—"If I like—what?"

"We could leave you——"

Her bosom rose and fell quickly with stormy breaths. "Alone, moneyless, in a strange town—that is well and kindly thought!" she said.

Whence had come to her this strange power of feeling pain? She had not known that one could suffer in one's heart like this; she, whose quarrel with life hitherto had been for its too great comfort, security and peace. She felt a lump rise to her throat, and tears well into her eyes, blurring all the sunlit vision and she turned her head away and beat her sound left hand clenched upon the ledge.

"Before heaven," cried Jack, distressed out of his unnatural stiffness, "you mistake me, Lady Landale! I am only anxious to do what is best for you, what Adrian would wish. To leave you alone, deserted, helpless at St. Malo, you could not have thought I should mean that? No, indeed, I would have seen you into safe hands, in some comfortable hotel, with a maid to wait upon you—I know of such a place—Adrian could not have been long in coming to fetch you. I should have had a letter ready to post to him the instant we landed. As to money," flushing boyishly, "that is the least consideration—there is no dearth of that to fear. If you prefer it I can, however, convey you somewhere upon the English coast after we quit St. Malo; but that will entail a longer residence for you here on board ship; and it is no fit place for you."

Still looking out across the sea, Molly replied, in a deep shaken voice, unlike her own, "You did not think it unfit for my sister."

"Your sister? But your sister was to have been my wife!"

Burning through the mists of her unshed tears once more her glance returned to his: "And I—" she cried and here was suddenly silent again, gazing at the thin circlet of gold upon her left hand, beneath the flashing diamonds. After a moment then, she broke out fiercely—"Oh do with me what you will, but for God's sake leave me in peace!" And stamping, turned her shoulder on him to stare straight outwards as before.

Captain Jack drew back, paused an instant, clutched his hair with a desperate gesture and slowly walked away.

The voyage of the Peregrine was as rapid as her captain had hoped, and the dawn of the fourth day broke upon them from behind the French coast, where Normandy joins old Armorica.

For a little while, Lady Landale, awakened from her uneasy sleep by the unusual stir on deck, lay languidly watching the light as it filtered through the port-hole of her little cabin, the colours growing out of greyness on the walls; listening to the tramp of feet and the mate's husky voice without. Then her heart tightened with a premonition of the coming separation. She sat up and looked out of her window: as the horizon rose and fell giddily to her eye there lay the fatal line of land. The land of her blood but to her now, the land of exile!

She had seen but little of Captain Jack these last two days; interchanged but few and formal words with him, now and then, as they met morning and evening or came across each other during the day. She felt that he avoided her. But she had seen him, she had heard his voice, they had been close to each other upon the great seas, however divided, and this had been something to feed upon. Now what prospect before her hungry heart but—starvation?

At least the last precious moments should not be lost to her. She rose and dressed in haste; a difficult operation in her maimed state. Before leaving her narrow quarters, she peered into the looking-glass with an eagerness she had never displayed in the days of her vain girlhood.

"What a fright!" she said to the anxious face that looked back at her with yearning eyes and dark burning lips. And she thought of Madeleine's placid fairness as Cain might of Abel's modest altar.

When she emerged upon deck, a strange and beautiful scene was spread to her gaze. A golden haze enveloped the water and the coast, but out of it, in brown jagged outline, against the blazing background of glowing sunlight rose the towers, the pointed roofs and spires of that old corsair's hive, St. Malo. The waters were bright green, frothed with oily foam around the ship. The masts cast strange long black shadows, and Molly saw one spring from her own feet as she moved into the morning glow. The Peregrine, she noticed, was cruising parallel with the coast, instead of making for the harbour, and just now all was very still on board. Two men, conspicuous against the yellow sky, stood apart, a little forward, with their backs turned to her.

One of these was Captain Jack, gazing steadily at the town through a telescope; the other the mate. Both were silent. Silently herself and unnoticed Molly went up and stood beside them; observing her sister's lover as intently as he that unknown distant point, she presently saw the lean hand nearest her tremble ever so slightly as it held the glass; then he turned and handed it to his companion, saying briefly, "See what you make of it."

The man lifted the glass, set it, looked, dropped his hand and faced his captain. Their eyes met, but neither spoke for a second or two.

"It is so, then?" said the captain at last.

"Aye, sir, no mistake about that. There's the tricolour up again—and be damned to it—as large as life, to be sure!"

The healthy tan of the captain's face had not altered by one shade; his mouth was set in its usual firm line, but, by the intuition of her fiery soul, the woman beside him knew that he had received a blow.

"A strange thing," went on Curwen in a grumbling guttural bass, "and it's only a year ago since they set up the old white napkin again. You did not look for this, sir?" He too had his intuitions.

"No, Curwen, it is the last thing I looked for. And it spells failure to me—failure once more!"

As he spoke he turned his head slightly and perceiving Molly standing close behind him glanced up sharply and frowned, then strove to smooth his brow into conventional serenity and greeted her civilly.

Curwen, clenching his hard hands together round the telescope, retired a step and stood apart, still hanging on his captain's every gesture like a faithful dog.

"What does it mean?" asked Molly, disregarding the morning salutation.

"It means strange things to France," responded Captain Jack slowly, with a bitter smile; "and to me, Madam, it means that I have come on a wild goose chase——"

He stretched out his hand for the glass once more as he spoke—although even by the naked eye the flag, minute as it was, could be seen to flash red in the breeze—and sought the far-off flutter again; and then closing the instrument with an angry snap, tossed it back.

"But what does it mean?" reiterated Molly, a wild impatience, a wild hope trembling in her breast.

"It means, Madam, that I have brought my pigs to the wrong market," cried Captain Jack, still with the smile that sat so strangely upon his frank lips; "that the goods I have to deliver, I cannot deliver. For if there is any meaning in symbols, by the wave of that tricolour yonder the country has changed rulers again. My dealings were to be with the king's men, and as they are not here, at least, no longer in power—how could they be under that rag?—I must even trot the cargo home again. Not a word to the men, Curwen, but give the order to sheer off! We have lowered the blue, white and red too often, have not we? to risk a good English ship, unarmed, under the nozzles of those Republican or Imperial guns."

The man grinned. The two could trust each other. Molly turned away and moved seawards, for she knew that the joy upon her face was not to be hidden. Captain Jack fell to pacing the deck with bent head, and long, slow steps.

Absorbed in dovetailing the last secret arrangements of his venture, and more intent still, during his very few hours of idleness, on the engrossing thought of love, he had had no knowledge of the extraordinary challenge to fate cast by Bonaparte, of that challenge which was to end in the last and decisive clash of French and English hosts. He had not even heard of the Corsican's return to France with his handful of grenadiers, for newspapers were scarce at Scarthey. But even had he heard, like the rest of the world, he would no doubt have thought no more of it than as a mad freak born of the vanquished usurper's foolhardy restlessness.

But the conclave of plenipotentiaries assembled at Vienna were not more thunderstruck when, on that very 19th of March, the semaphore brought them news of the legitimate King of France once more fled, and of his country once more abandoned to the hated usurper, than was Captain Jack as he watched the distant flagstaff in the sunrise, and saw, when the morning port gun had vomited forth its white cloud on the ramparts of St. Malo, the fatal stripes run up the slender line in lieu of the white standard.

But Jack Smith's mind, like his body, was quick in action. The sun had travelled but a degree or two over the wide undulating land, the mists were yet rising, when suddenly he halted, and called the mate in those commanding tones that had, from the first time she had heard them, echoed in Molly's heart:

"Bring her alongside one of those smacks yonder, the furthest out to sea."

Thereupon followed Curwen's hoarse bellow, an ordered stampede upon the deck, and gracefully, with no more seeming effort than a swan upon a garden pond, the Peregrine veered and glided towards the rough skiff with its single ochre sail and its couple of brown-faced fishermen, who had left their nets to watch her advance. Captain Jack leant over the side, his hands over his mouth, and hailed them in his British-French—correct enough, but stiff to his tongue, as Molly heard and smiled at, and loved him for, in woman's way, when she loves at all.

"Ahoy, the friend! A golden piece for him who will come on board and tell the news of the town."

A brief consultation between the fisher pair.

"Un Écu d'or," repeated Captain Jack. Then there was a flash of white teeth on the two weather-beaten faces.

"On y va, patron," cried one of the fellows, cheerfully, and jumped into his dinghey, while his comrade still stared and grinned, and the stalwart lads of the Peregrine grinned back at the queer foreign figure with the brown cap and the big gold earrings.

Soon the fisherman's bare feet were thudding on the deck, and he stood before the English captain, cap in hand, his little, quick black eyes roaming in all directions, over the wonders of the beautiful white ship, with innocent curiosity. But before Captain Jack could get his tongue round another French phrase, Molly, detaching herself from her post of observation, came forward, smiling.

"Let me speak to him," she said, "he will understand me better, and it will go quicker. What is it you want to know?"

Captain Jack hesitated a moment, saw the advantage of the suggestion, and then accepted the offer with the queer embarrassment that always came over him in his relations with her.

"You are very good," he said.

"Oh, I like to talk the father and mother tongue," she said, gaily and sweetly. Her eyes danced; he had never seen her in this mood, and, as before, grudgingly had to admit her beauty.

"And if you will allow it," she went on, "I am glad to be of use too."

The fisherman, twirling his cap in his knotted fingers, stared at her open mouthed. Une si belle dame! like a queen and speaking his tongue that it was a music to listen to. This was in truth a ship of marvels. Ah, bon Dieu, oui, Madame, there were news at St. Malo, but it depended upon one's feelings whether they were to be regarded as good or bad—Dame, every one has one's opinions—but for him—pourvu qu'on lui fiche la paix—what did it matter who sat on the throne—His Majesty the King—His Majesty the Emperor, or Citizen Bonaparte. Oh, a poor fisherman, what was it to him? He occupied himself with his little fishes, not with great folk. (Another white-teethed grin.) What had happened? Parbleu, it began by the military, those accursed military (this with a cautious look around, and gathering courage by seeing no signs of disapproval, proceeding with greater volubility). The poor town was full of them, infantry and artillery; regiments of young devils—and a band of old ones too. The veterans of celui lÀ (spitting on the deck contemptuously) they were the worst; that went without saying. A week ago there came a rumour that he had escaped—was in France—and then the ferment began—duels every day—rows in the cafÉs, fights in the ports. At night one would hear shouts in the streets—Vive l'Empereur! and it spread, it spread. Ma foi—one regiment mutinied, then another—and then it was known that the Emperor had reached Paris. Oh, then it was warm! All those gentlemen, the officers who were for the King, were arrested. Then there was a grand parade on the place d'armes—Yes, he went there too, though he did not care much about soldiers. All the garrison was there. The colonel of the veterans came out with a flag in its case. Portez armes! Good. They pull out the flag from the case: it's the old tricolour with the eagle on the top! Presentez armes! And this time it was all over. Ah, one should have seen that, heard the houras, seen the bonfires! Monsieur le Maire and the rest, appointed by the King, they were in a great fright, they had to give way—what does Madame say? Traitors? Oh, bÉdame (scratching his head), it was no joke with the military just now—the whole place was under military law and, saperlotte, when the strong commands it is best for the weak to obey. As for him, he was only a poor fisherman. What did he know? he was not a politician: every one to his trade. So long as they let one have the peace—He thanked the gentleman, thanked him much; thanked the lady, desired to wish her the good-morning and Monsieur too. Did they like no little fresh soles this morning? He had some leaping then below in his boat. No? well the good-morning then.

They had heard enough. The fisherman paddled back to his skiff, and Molly stood watching from a little distance the motionless figure of the captain of the Peregrine as with one hand clenching the hand-rail he gazed towards St. Malo with troubled eyes.

After a few minutes Curwen advanced and touched him lightly on the arm.

Captain Jack turned slowly to look at him: his face was a little pale and his jaw set. But the mate, who had served under him since the day he first stepped upon the old St. Nicholas, a gallant, fair-faced lad (and who knew "every turn of him," as he would have expressed it himself), saw that he had taken his decision; and he stepped back satisfied, ready to shape his course for the near harbour, or for the Pacific Ocean, or back to Scarthey itself at his master's bidding.

"Call the men up," said the captain, "they have earned their bounty and they shall have it. Though their skipper is a poorer man than he thought to be, by this fool's work yonder, his good lads shall not suffer. Tush, man, that's the order—not a word. And after that, Curwen, let her make for the sea again, northwards."