poets' guild and skilled to
make some use that might please her of the dumb thoughts that troubled
me. As it was it was she who seemed to speak with the speech of angels
and I who listened mumchance.

She had the rarest gifts and graces for gladdening our voyage. She could
sing, and she could play a guitarra that she had brought from Spain; and
often of fair evenings, when we sat out on the deck, she would sing to
us ballads in Spanish and French, and then for me, who was unlettered,
she would sing old English ditties, such as 'Barbara Allen' and 'When
first I saw your face,' and many canzonets from out of Mr. William
Shakespeare's plays, which she always held in high esteem, and I would
sit and listen in a rapture.

Once, a long while after, when that Spanish tongue had become as
familiar to me as it was then unfamiliar, I remember falling into a
brawl with a stout fellow in Spain, and getting, as luck would have it,
the better of the business, and being within half a mind of ramming my
knife into his throat; for my blood was up, and the fellow had meant to
kill me if he had had the chance. But even as I made to strike, he,
looking up at me, and as cool as if I were doing him a favour, began to
sing very softly to himself just one of those very Spanish songs that
Marjorie used to sing of summer evenings on the deck of the Royal
Christopher. And as he sang so, waiting death, in that instant all my
rage vanished, and I put aside my weapon and held out my hand to him,
and asked his forgiveness and asked his friendship. The man looked
amazed, as well he might; and it was lucky for me that he did not seize
the chance to stab me unawares. But he did not, and we shook hands and
parted, and he went his ways never witting that he owed his life to the
fairest woman in the whole wide world--at least, that I have ever seen,
and I have seen many and many in my time.

There were two on that ship with whom I did not wish to have any
dealings, namely, Barbara and the red-bearded man, Hatchett by name,
who was now her husband. However, I saw but little of them, for they
kept to their own part of the ship.

Barbara knew me again, of course, and we saluted each other when we met,
as it was of course inevitable that we should meet on board ship. But we
did not meet often, and I was glad to find that I felt no pang when the
rare meetings did take place. That folly had wholly gone. There--I have
written those words, but I have no soone