There was a short, pregnant silence when he had departed with his child-wife on his arm. Stephen Gore shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Hortense. “Most serious of swains! Oh, sage Solomon, who would grudge him the responsibility of taming even one wife!” “Alas, another unfortunate who has not learned to laugh.” Sir Marmaduke Thibthorp was standing sheepishly beside the door, striving to look amused. “Such is fate,” he giggled. “And such is a stool!” quoth Thomas Temple, sticking out a leg with a blotch of blood on his stocking. My Lord Gore took leave of Hortense after talking with her a moment alone by the window. “Bring her to me, my friend,” she said, as he made his bow. “If you cannot cure her—” “Ah, well—we shall see.” He was crossing the park when a servant met him and handed him a note. It was sealed with pink wax and smelled of ambergris. My lord opened it as he strolled under the trees. “I would see you soon. Jael has been of use to me.” “A. P.” V A ship’s boat came up the river with half a dozen brown fellows tugging at the oars, their dark skins and the patched picturesqueness of their gaudy-colored shirts giving them something of the air of a boat-load of buccaneers with gayly kerchiefed heads, ringed ears, and belts full of pistols. A man in a soiled red coat, with remnants of lace hanging to the cuffs, sat in the stern-sheets, his sword across his knees, and beside him on the gunwale squatted a boy whose cheeky sparrow’s face stared out from a tangle of crisp fair hair. The man in the red coat looked even more brown and picturesque than the seamen at the oars. He wore no wig under his battered beaver, and his own black hair looked as though it had not been barbered for six months. His shoes had lost their buckles, and the stocking of his right leg showed a hole the size of a guinea above the heel. “Three more strokes—and easy—lads.” “Right, capt’n.” “Let her run now; in with the bow sweeps.” They had passed the Savoy, and drawn close in toward Charing Steps, with a west wind sending the water slapping against the planking. The man in the red coat held the tiller, and let the boat glide in, while the seamen shipped their oars. The boat’s nose rubbed against the stone facing of the steps, while a brown hand or two grabbed at the mooring-rings. The boy on the gunwale was the first to leap ashore. A number of watermen lounging about the steps were staring at the boat and its crew, and exchanging opinions thereon with more candor than curtesy. The sea-captain, standing in the stern-sheets, buckled his sword to a faded baldric, callous to any criticism that might be lavished on him by the river-side sots. “Good-luck to you, capt’n.” “You won’t forget us, sir.” “We’ll follow you round Cape Horn again for a fight.”