Part 55 (1/2)
”Maybe not,” retorted Master Leigh, ”because Sir John little knohat it is in my power to tell him Take me before him, I say, that he may hear from me the truth of certain matters ere it be too late”
”Be still,” the seaman bade him, and struck him heavily across the face, so that he reeled and collapsed into a corner ”Thee turn will come soon Just now our business be with this other heathen”
”Naught that you can say would avail,” Sir Oliver assured hiht that marks you for my friend My hands are bound, Jasper Were it otherwise I would beg leave to clasp your own Fare you well!”
Sir Oliver was led out into the golden sunlight which al confineathered, to conduct him to the cabin where a short ress was arrested by an officer, who bade theuard about him, an object of curious inspection to the rude seaed the forecastle and the hatchways to stare at this forentleade Muslim and a terror to Christianity
Truth to tell, the soentleman was difficult to discern in hi the caftan of cloth of silver over his white tunic and a turban of the same material swathed about his steel headpiece that ended in a spike Idly he swung his brown sinewy legs, naked from knee to ankle, with the inscrutable calate eyes and black forked beard; and those callous seamen who had assembled there to jeer and mock him were stricken silent by the intrepidity and stoicis in the face of death
If the delay chafed hilanced hither and thither it was upon no idle quest He was seeking Rosaht of her before they launched hie
But Rosamund was not to be seen She was in the cabin at the time She had been there for this hour past, and it was to her that the present delay was due
CHAPTER XXIV THE JUDGES
In the absence of any woht entrust her, Lord Henry, Sir John, and Master Tobias, the shi+p's surgeon, had ast them tended Rosamund as best they could when nuht aboard the Silver Heron
Master Tobias had applied such rude restoratives as he co made her as comfortable as possible upon a couch in the spacious cabin astern, he had suggested that she should be allowed the rest of which she appeared so sorely to stand in need He had ushered out the coone below to a stillhis attention--that of Lionel Tressilian, who had been brought liether with some four other wounded members of the Silver Heron's crew
At dawn Sir John had co news of his wounded friend He found the surgeon kneeling over Lionel
As he entered, Master Tobias turned aside, rinsed his hands in athem on a napkin
”I can do novoice ”He is sped”
”Dead, d'ye eon tossed aside the napkin, and slowly dren the upturned sleeves of his black doublet ”All but dead,” he answered ”The wonder is that any spark of life should still linger in a body with that hole in it He is bleeding inwardly, and his pulse is steadily weakening It must continue so until imperceptibly he passes away You may count him dead already, Sir John” He paused ”A hed perfunctorily, his pale shaven face decently grave, for all that such scenes as these were commonplaces in his life ”Of the other four,” he continued, ”Blair is dead; the other three should all recover”
But Sir John gave little heed to theof all hope for his friend precluded any other consideration at the moment
”And he will not even recover consciousness?” he asked insisting, although already he had been answered
”As I have said, youfor hirave ”Nor can e hieon ”Vengeance, sir, is the hollowest of all the o to eon, ”is one of justice, not vengeance”
”A quibble, when all is said” He stepped to Lionel's side, and looked down at the pale handsome face over which the dark shadows of death were already creeping ”If he would but speak in the interests of this justice that is to do! If we ht but have the evidence of his oords, lest I should ever be asked to justify the hanging of Oliver Tressilian”
”Surely, sir,” the surgeon ventured, ”there can be no such question ever Mistress Rosamund's word alone should suffice, if indeed so ainst God and rounds upon which any should ever question ht to deal with him out of hand”