"It's enough," he muttered.
I beckoned to Diccon, and putting the tiller into his hands went
forward to reef the sail. When it was done and I was back in my
place, my lord spoke again.
"Where are we going, captain?"
"I don't know."
"If you leave that sail up much longer, you will land us at the
bottom of the river."
"There are worse places," I replied.
He left his seat, and moved, though with caution, to one nearer
Mistress Percy. "Are cold and storm and peril sweeter to you, lady,
than warmth and safety, and a love that would guard you from, not
run you into, danger?" he said in a whisper. "Do you not wish this
boat the Santa Teresa, these rude boards the velvet cushions of her
state cabin, this darkness her many lights, this cold her warmth,
with the night shut out and love shut in?"
His audacity, if it angered me, yet made me laugh. Not so with the
King's ward. She shrank from him until she pressed against the
tiller. Our flight, the pursuing feet, the struggle at the wharf, her
wounded arm of which she had not told, the terror of the white sail
rising as if by magic, the vision of the man she hated lying as one
dead before her in the moonlight, the cold, the hurry of the night, -
small wonder if her spirit failed her for some time. I felt her hand
touch mine where it rested upon the tiller.
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