y with an offer of wains and
pack-horses to convey the bulk of it to the outhouses at Godolphin.
But this, when I interpreted it, the Portuguese captain would not hear.
Nor was he more tractable to Mr. Saint Aubyn's offer to set a mixed
guard of our three companies upon the stuff until daybreak. He plainly
had his doubts of such protection: and I could not avoid some respect
for his wisdom while showing it by argument to be mere perversity.
To my Master's persuasions and mine he shook his head: asking for the
present to be allowed a little fuel and refreshment for his men, who
would camp on the beach among their goods. And to this, in the end, we
had to consent. Several times before agreeing--and perhaps more often
than need was--my Master consulted with the Lady Alicia. But she seemed
indifferent what happened to the ship. Indeed, she might well have been
overwearied.

At length, the Portugals having it their own way, we parted: Mr. Saint
Aubyn riding off to lodge for the night with Mr. Godolphin, who took
charge of the three wounded men; while we carried the Lady Alicia off to
Pengersick (whither the prisoner Gil Perez had been marched on ahead),
she riding pillion behind my Master, and the rest of us at a seemly
distance.

On reaching home I had first to busy myself with orders for the victuals
to be sent down to the foreigners at the Cove, and afterwards in
snatching my supper in the great hall, where already I saw my Master and
the strange lady making good cheer together at the high table. He had
bidden the housekeeper fetch out some robes that had been his mother's,
and in these antique fittings the lady looked not awkwardly (as you
might suppose), but rather like some player in a masque. I know not how
'twas: but whereas (saving my respect) I had always been to my dear
Master as a brother, close to his heart and thoughts, her coming did at
once remove him to a distance from me, so that I looked on the pair as
if the dais were part of some other world than this, and they, pledging
each other up there and murmuring in foreign tongues and playing with
glances, as two creatures moving through a play or pisky tale without
care or burden of living, and yet in the end to be pitied.

My fast broken, I bethought me of our prisoner; and catching up some
meats and a flask of wine, hurried to the strong room where he lay. But
I found him stretched on his pallet, and turning in a kind of fever: so
returned and fetc