though they pray not to the
same god. As he stood there, when his time had come, weighing the bowl
in his hand, I knew that he prayed to his daemon, fate, star, whatever
thing he raised an altar to and bent before. He threw, and I followed,
while the throng held its breath. Master Macocke rose to his feet. "It's
a tie, my masters!" he exclaimed.

The excited crowd surged forward, and a babel of voices arose. "Silence,
all!" cried the Governor. "Let them play it out!"

My lord threw, and his bowl stopped perilously near the shining mark. As
I stepped to my place a low and supplicating "O Lord!" came to my
ears from the lips and the heart of the preacher, who had that morning
thundered against the toys of this world. I drew back my arm and threw
with all my force. A cry arose from the throng, and my lord ground his
heel into the earth. The bowl, spurning the jack before it, rushed on,
until both buried themselves in the red and yellow leaves that filled
the trench.

I turned and bowed to my antagonist. "You bowl well, my lord," I said.
"Had you had the forest training of eye and arm, our fortunes might have
been reversed."

He looked me up and down. "You are kind, sir," he said thickly.
"'To-day to thee, to-morrow to me.' I give you joy of your petty
victory."

He turned squarely from me, and stood with his face downstream. I was
speaking to Rolfe and to the few--not even all of that side for which I
had won--who pressed around me, when he wheeled.

"Your Honor," he cried to the Governor, who had paused beside Mistress
Percy, "is not the Due Return high-pooped? Doth she not carry a blue
pennant, and hath she not a gilt siren for figurehead?"

"Ay," answered the Governor, lifting his head from the hand he had
kissed with ponderous gallantry. "What then, my lord?"

"Then to-morrow has dawned, sir captain," said my lord to me. "Sure,
Dame Venus and her blind son have begged for me favorable winds; for the
Due Return has come again."

The game that had been played was forgotten for that day. The hogshead
of sweet scented, lying to one side, wreathed with bright vines, was
unclaimed of either party; the servants who brought forward the keg of
canary dropped their burden, and stared with the rest. All looked down
the river, and all saw the Due Return coming up the broad, ruffled
stream, the wind from the sea filling her sails, the tide with her, the
gilt mermaid on her prow just rising from the rushing foam. She came