ou grow eager--and wherefore?"

"'Tis no matter!"

"Shipmate," says he, shaking his head, "an we sail as brothers and
comrades there must be never a secret betwixt us--speak!"

"As ye will!" quoth I, leaning back in my chair. "I learn then you are
sailing as master in a ship bound for the Main in quest of Sir Richard
Brandon lost off Hispaniola two years agone. Sir Richard Brandon is
the man I have sought ever since I broke out of the hell he sold me
into. Now look'ee, Adam Penfeather," says I, springing to my feet and
grasping his arm, "look'ee now--put me in the way of meeting this man,
aid me to get my hand on this man and I am yours--aye, body and
soul--to the end o' things, and this I swear!"

While I spake thus, my voice hoarse with passion, my fingers clutching
his arm, Penfeather stood pinching his chin and watching me beneath his
black brows; when I had ended he turned and falls a-pacing to and fro
across the room as it had been the narrow poop of a ship.

"Ah--I know you now, my lord!" says he, pausing suddenly before me.
"As the sailor-man who watched you as you lay a-groaning in your sleep
outside the Conisby Arms, I guessed you one o' the Conisby breed by
your ring, and as one born and bred here in Kent I mind well the adage,
'To hate like a Brandon and revenge like a Conisby,' and by God, my
lord, you are a true Conisby, it seemeth! Vengeance!" says he, his
thin features grown sharp and austere, "Ah! I have seen much and
overmuch of it aboard lawless craft and among the wild islands of the
Caribbees. I have seen the devilish cruelties of Spaniard, Portugal,
and the red horrors of Indian vengeance--but, for cold, merciless
ferocity, for the vengeance that dieth not, biding its time and
battening on poisonous hate, it needeth your man o' noble birth, your
gentleman o' quality!" Here he turned his back and paced slowly to the
end of the room; when he faced me again his austere look was gone, in
its stead was the grimly whimsical expression of the mariner, as I had
seen him first.

"Damme!" says I, scowling, "Was it to read me homilies that you had me
here?"

"Aha, shipmate," says he with rueful smile, "there spake the young
divine, the excellent divinity student who committed a peccadillo long
years agone and, sailing to the Golden West, gave place to one Adam
Penfeather a sailor-man--as you shall hear tell of at St. Kitt's,
Tortuga, Santa Catalina and a score o' places along the Main. As to
y