"
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 as swiftly as a bird to its nest.
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