At the sound of my voice he sprang to his feet.
"I should advise your lordship to sit still," I said. "The wind is very
boisterous, and we are not under bare poles. If you exert yourself,
you may capsize the boat."
He sat down mechanically, and put his hand to his forehead. I
watched him curiously. It was the strangest trick that fortune had
played him.
His hand dropped at last, and he straightened himself, with a long
breath. "Who threw me into the boat?" he demanded.
"The honor was mine," declared the minister.
The King's minion lacked not the courage of the body, nor, when
passionate action had brought him naught, a certain reserve force
of philosophy. He now did the best thing he could have done, -
burst into a roar of laughter. "Zooks!" he cried. "It's as good a
comedy as ever I saw! How's the play to end, captain? Are we to
go off laughing, or is the end to be bloody after all? For instance, is
there murder to be done?" He looked at me boldly, one hand on his
hip, the other twirling his mustaches.
"We are not all murderers, my lord," I told him. "For the present
you are in no danger other than that which is common to us all."
He looked at the clouds piling behind us, thicker and thicker,
higher and higher, at the bending mast, at the black water swirling
now and again over the gunwales.
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