Ah, my lord, let me not
ask in vain! Will you that I kneel to you?"
"I fix my own price," he said. "I will do what you ask, an you will
let me kiss your lips."
I sprang forward with an oath. Some one behind caught both my
wrists in an iron grasp and pulled me back. "Be not a fool!"
growled Clayborne in my ear. "The cord's loosening fast: if you
interfere, it may tighten with a jerk!" I freed my hands from his
grasp. The Treasurer, sitting next him, leaned across the table and
motioned to the two seamen beside the window. They left their
station, and each seized me by an arm. "Be guided, Captain Percy,"
said Master Sandys in a low voice. "We wish you well. Let her win
you through."
"First tell the truth, my lord," said the King's ward; "then come and
take the reward you ask."
"Jocelyn!" I cried. "I command you" -
She turned upon me a perfectly colorless face. "All my life after I
will be to you an obedient wife," she said. "This once I pray you to
hold me excused. . . . Speak, my lord."
There was the mirth of the lost in the laugh with which he turned
to the Governor. "That pretty little tale, sir, that I regaled you with,
the day you obligingly picked me up, was pure imagination; the
wetting must have disordered my reason. A potion sweeter than
the honey of Hybla, which I am about to drink, hath restored me
beforehand.
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