She turned to him with a look of intense hatred and repugnance, but it died suddenly; and, smiling, so that he might see the smile, whereas the scorn had been concealed, she retreated slowly toward the door. He hesitated for a moment, seeming to be drawn two ways, then followed her. Once outside the fortress she sat down upon a rusty caliver which had been found among the débris of the first settlement—sat down and waited, fearing doubtfully that her magnetism might not avail to bring him even to so short a distance from the secrets of the fort. But the chape of his scabbard grated on the threshold, and in a minute he stood bending over her with ardent eyes, yet evidently against his will. Youthful _insouciance_, which, warring with a certain haughtiness and scorn, played so often across his features, had left him a suppliant before her, yet a suppliant who would, she felt, as a last resort, throw supplication to the winds. “Since the description,” he said, “I have dreamed of you often.” The square before the fortress was now deserted, a large crowd having followed Marlowe in his excited quest, for, despite her unpleasant notoriety, Gyll Croyden was by no means unpopular in the colony. The women might shake their heads and, justly enough, gossip as they would, but the men had been glad now to take up arms and go in search of her. And with many it was but the spirit of comradeship that inspired them. “My queen!” The two words came in a low whisper, nevertheless with all the colossal self-assurance by which the youth, now known as Ralph Contempt, was long remembered.