"Not at all. It is all as simple as can be. Madame Elizabeth was my aunt, my father's sister. She was very sweet. Poor dear! They cut off her head, though she never harmed a soul since the day she was born. She was very good to me. If she had lived I do not think I would be here. She was not like the rest. I could have lived happily with her." And so she chattered away,--about the late King--her uncle also,--and of the Duc d'Orleans,--"always a self-seeker, and intriguer, with a very sharp eye on the way things might turn to his own benefit. Oh, I am glad they took his head off. It was righteous retribution."--And of the Queen---- "She did foolish things at times, but she meant no harm, and, mon Dieu, how she suffered!"--And of Lafayette, and Talleyrand, and many and many another. And it was indeed passing strange to lie there listening to it all--she clad in her blankets, for the night air had a chill in it, and he in the sea-damaged coat and small clothes of a gentleman of the Duke of Kent's suite, while between them the thin blue reek of the drift-wood fire on its hearth of sand stole up through the half-closed companion-hatch to the lonely night outside. XXXIV "We shall have a visit from our next-door neighbour presently, I expect," said Wulfrey, when The Girl came out of her cabin next morning. "Will you mind stopping below while I dispose of him?" "But why?" "He puts things coarsely at times, and he will probably be in a very bad humour at having to get his own meals ready." "I don't mind him." "Nor do I, except on your account. But I shall feel happier if you are out of sight and hearing." "Oh, very well. But nothing he could say would trouble me in the slightest." So, after breakfast, she sat down on the cabin floor to her sewing, and he lit his pipe and went up on deck carrying his axe. He closed the companion-doors and hatch very quietly--but she heard him--and went forward into the bows, which, since the usual wind blew from the south-west, was the nearest point to the 'Jane and Mary.' It was a long time before the mate showed any signs, beyond an extra rush of smoke when he made up his fire to cook his breakfast. But he came up at last, caught sight of Wulfrey, and stood scowling across at him for a time. Then he dropped down on to his raft and came wobbling, with quick angry strokes, across to the 'Martha.' "So that's it, is it?" he growled, with a grim look on his dark face. "That's it," said Wulfrey coolly. "And you think you've got her all to yourself?--what you've been plotting for ever since I hauled her ashore." "Are you speaking of Miss Drummond?" "I'm speaking of that girl. 'Twas me hauled her ashore an' she's my right if she's anybody's."