"What! is't Mistress Tudor? Have they turned you adrift, then? Lor', 'tis a frail craft to be out o' harbour such foul weather!" "How is he?" I repeated, tightening my grasp upon his sleeve. "Dead as a pickled herring, poor lad!" My head struck heavily against the wall as I fell, but I made no outcry. "Sink me! but the poor lassie thought I meant Mr. Rivers!" I heard the old sailor exclaim as he dropped on his knees beside me,--and the words stayed my failing senses. "Whom did you mean?" I gasped. "Young Poole has been done to death, Mistress Margaret. As honest a lad as ever lived, too,--more's the pity!" I struggled to raise myself, crying: "What do you tell me? Have they killed the lad in pure spite against his master? And where is Mr. Rivers?" They made me no answer. "He is dead, then! I knew it, my heart told me so!" "Eh! poor lass! 'Tis not so bad as that--yet bad enough. They've hung chains enough upon him to anchor a man-o'-war, and moored him fast in the dungeon of the fort. D--n 'em for a crew o' dastard furriners!--an' he own cousin to an English earl!" "Can you not tell me a straight tale?" I cried. "What has he done to be so ill served? And whose the enmity behind it all,--Melinza's, or the Governor's?" "Lor'!" exclaimed one of the sailors, "the young Don is past revenge, mistress. If he lives out the night 'tis more than I look to see." "Here, now, let me tell the tale, lad," the old captain interposed. "'Twas a duel began it, Mistress Tudor. The young bloods were so keen after fighting they could not wait for sunrise, but must needs have it out by moonlight on the beach. 'Twas over yonder, in the lee of the castle walls." "Mr. Rivers and Don Pedro?" "Aye, mistress. The Governor was not by,--'tis likely he knew naught of it." "Not so!" I cried, "he had his share in the quarrel, and they left the house in company." "Mayhap," said Captain Baulk, "I'd not gainsay it--for I trust no one o' them; but he chose to go with his weather eye shut rather than take precaution 'gainst the squall. So they had it out all by their selves,--and none of us a whit the wiser, saving young Poole, who had guessed somewhat was amiss and followed his master." "What then? Speak quickly! Was Mr. Rivers wounded?" "Not he! That's to say, not by any thrust of the Don's. Lor', but it must ha' been a pretty fight! Pity no man saw it that lives to tell!" "In the name of mercy, sir, speak plainly!"