hat helped the captain. He pulled at his pipe a
moment.

"I was bidden," said he presently, "to carry you to Barbary and sell
you there into the service of the Moors. That I might serve you, I made
believe to accept this task."

"God's death!" swore Sir Oliver. "You carry make-believe to an odd
length."

"The weather has been against me. It were no intention o' mine to ha'
come so far south with you. But we've been driven by the gale. That is
overpast, and so that ye'll promise to bear no plaint against me, and
to make good some of the loss I'll make by going out of my course, and
missing a cargo that I wot of, I'll put about and fetch you home again
within a week."

Sir Oliver looked at him and smiled grimly. "Now what a rogue are you
that can keep faith with none!" he cried. "First you take money to carry
me off; and then you bid me pay you to carry me back again."

"Ye wrong me, sir, I vow ye do! I can keep faith when honest men employ
me, and ye should know it, Sir Oliver. But who keeps faith with rogues
is a fool--and that I am not, as ye should also know. I ha' done this
thing that a rogue might be revealed to you and thwarted, as well as
that I might make some little profit out of this ship o' mine. I am
frank with ye, Sir Oliver. I ha' had some two hundred pounds in money
and trinkets from your brother. Give me the like and...."

But now of a sudden Sir Oliver's listlessness was all dispelled. It fell
from him like a cloak, and he sat forward, wide awake and with some show
of anger even.

"How do you say?" he cried, on a sharp, high note.

The captain stared at him, his pipe neglected. "I say that if so be
as ye'll pay me the same sum which your brother paid me to carry you
off...."

"My brother?" roared the knight. "Do you say my brother?"

"I said your brother."

"Master Lionel?" the other demanded still.

"What other brothers have you?" quoth Master Leigh.

There fell a pause and Sir Oliver looked straight before him, his head
sunken a little between his shoulders. "Let me understand," he said at
length. "Do you say that my brother Lionel paid you money to carry me
off--in short, that my presence aboard this foul hulk of yours is due to
him?"

"Whom else had ye suspected? Or did ye think that I did it for my own
personal diversion?"

"Answer me," bellowed Sir Oliver, writhing in his bonds.

"I ha' answered you more than once already. Still, I tell you once
again, since ye are slow to und