“If you will excuse me, sir, I will leave you with my wife for a little, and go to see that a pilot is sent out”-- “I told Doten to get his boat ready, and wait your Excellency’s orders,” interposed Holmes, resolute to give the governor his full honors before this stranger. “That was well done, friend,” replied Bradford gently, and would have left the room, but the priest, rising nimbly, and taking his cloak and hat from the deer’s antlers where they hung, exclaimed, in his perfect although accented English, “Nay, I will not be left behind. There may be use for another pair of hands.” “And possibly for a turn of priest-craft,” thought Bradford, smiling to himself; but Drouillette, catching the smile, returned it with a little shrug and arch of the eyebrows, saying in French,-- “And why not? Few mariners sail from Geneva.” “You are in your right, sir,” returned the governor in the same tongue, and courteously motioning his guest to pass before him, while Gillian, to whom French was a mother tongue, listened with both ears, and resolved to by and by hold a private conversation with the priest, who already had perceived her knowledge of his language and taken the measure of her nature; that she would prove an easy proselyte, and quite enjoy the intrigue of covertly becoming a Catholic while openly remaining in a Protestant community, he had also perceived, but after a moment’s thought had decided the facile victory to be at once valueless and dangerous, and during the rest of his stay opposed a bland stupidity to all the girl’s ingenious advances. The stout pilot boat, clumsy enough as contrasted with those that to-day skim across the waters of Plymouth harbor, but then a model of beauty and skill, lay ready beside the Rock, and at a word from the governor speeded forth under its close-reefed foresail, carrying three active fellows to the rescue of the foremost brigantine, which, warned by the sounding-lead of shoal water, and struggling against a current which insisted upon setting her ashore on the beach, was lying to and waiting for pilotage. Half an hour later the three vessels were anchored in the stream, and a procession of boats was bringing their officers and detachments of the crews ashore, discharging them at a rude stone pier and bulkhead extending a few feet beyond the Rock, which, as yet uninjured by patriotic zeal, lay calmly presiding over the modern commotions that had come to disturb its centuries of solitude.