er her in the dimness until I might
stare into her eyes, wide and dark in the pale oval of her face, "Will
ye dare--"

"A child," says she again, nodding at me, "lost and wilful and very
selfish with no thought above Martin Conisby and his wrongs. Nay, scowl
not nor grind your teeth, 'tis vain! For how may I, that fear not
God's dreadful tempest, stoop to fear poor Martin Conisby?"

"Stoop, madam?" I cried hoarsely.

"Aye, stoop," says she. "The wrongs you have endured have plunged you
to the very deeps, have stripped you of your manhood. And yet--yours is
no murderer's face even when you scowl and clench your fist! 'Twas so
you looked when you fought that rough boy on my behalf so many years
ago when you were Sir Martin the Knight-errant and I was Princess
Damaris. And now, Martin, you that were my playmate and had
forgot--you that were so ready to fight on my behalf--in this
desolation there is none you may do battle with for my sake saving
only--Martin Conisby!"

Now here she turned, her face hid from me 'neath a fold of the great
boat-cloak, and spake no more. And I, crouched above her, staring down
at her muffled form outstretched thus at my mercy, felt my quivering
fist relax, felt my brutish anger cower before her trust and
fearlessness. And so, leaning across the tiller, I stared away into
the raging dark; and now it seemed that the soul of me had sunk to
deeps more black and, groping blindly there, hungered for the light.

So all night long we drove before the tempest through a pitchy gloom
full of the hiss of mighty seas that roared past us in the dark like
raging giants. And all night long she lay, her head pillowed at my
feet, sleeping like a wearied child, and her long, wind-tossed hair
within touch of my hand.

CHAPTER XXIII

DIVERS PERILS AND DANGERS AT SEA

Towards dawn the wind abated more and more and, glancing into the
lightening East, I saw the black storm-clouds pierced, as it were, by a
sword of glory, a single vivid ray that smote across the angry waters,
waxing ever more glorious until up flamed the sun before whose joyous
beams the sullen clouds scattered, little by little, and melted away.

And now I (that was doomed to be my own undoing) instead of thanking
that merciful God who had delivered us from such dire peril, must needs
scowl upon this kindly sun and fall again to my black humours. For,
the immediate dangers past, I began to ponder the future and inwardly
to rag