He raised his head, and confronted the Governor, with calm and haggard face. The latter sprang to his feet with the cry: ‘My child! My child! Cowards, miscreants, what have you done to my child?’ ‘Pardon, Monsieur, we are not cowards--we should not be here else. Go and look for your child in her own bed; we wait for your return.’ The Governor, without a word, turned and fled out of the room and up the stairs. The two stood immovable and waited; Pierre indeed made a gesture towards the pistol, but Jacques, into whose eyes had crept a look almost of hope, shook his head, and the giant, faithful in his confidence to the last, left it untouched. The Governor returned, grave and stern, but his eye was bright and he walked with a firm step. ‘My child is ill,’ he said. ‘Monsieur,’ said Jacques, with dignity, ‘we were afraid for her, so we brought her home; had we kept her till midnight she would have died; but have no fear--I know the fever; she will be well again in a short time.’ The Governor shivered--the shock and strain of the last two days had unnerved him. He sat down again, and leant back, thinking. A flame shot into his eyes. ‘And you would have killed my child!’ he said, with a menacing gesture at the two figures in front of him. ‘No, Monsieur, we would not, and the proof is in that we have brought her back rather than that she should be harmed.’ Jacques looked fearlessly back into the searching and resentful eyes. The Governor fell back in his chair, and it seemed to them an eternity before he spoke again. When he did it was slowly and measuredly, and his words were those of a judge: ‘Men, I, the Governor of this great island, and a French gentleman, had sacrificed my duty and my honour to my love. What you required has been done--the boat is provisioned and ready, the way will be clear from eleven o’clock till twelve. At your bidding, _yours_, had I done this; _you_ had put me to this shame, but Fate has delivered you into my hands, and saved me what, as God be my witness, was necessity. Why should I spare you? Yet,’ he paused, and the sombre calm of Jacques’ face was pierced again for an instant by that gleam of hope, ‘you have made a sacrifice. I know that to such as you, liberty is sweeter than life,--I cannot doubt the sacrifice,--and I will grant you one chance. If that chance favour you, you will find in that chest what I have prepared for you--disguises and some papers, signed by me, assuring you a passport; hide in this room till eleven o’clock, then go, and may fortune speed you--the boat is at the little bay; but if the chance favour you not--look for no mercy from me, for by heaven, you shall have none. Wait for me here.’ Again he left the room and ascended the stairs. ‘Go, go!’ said Pierre, ‘there is still time.’ ‘No,’ said Jacques, and they waited--for nearly an hour they waited, so worn that they no longer felt the strain,--there is a limit to suffering, bodily and mental, beyond which feeling is not.