"Mornin', Squire Prosper! Mornin', Billy! You know _me_, sir--Cap'n Jo Pomery--which is short for Job, and 'tis the luckiest chance, sir, you hailed me, for you'm nearabouts the first man I wanted to see. Faith, now, and I wonder how your father (God bless him) will take it?" "Why, what's the matter?" asked I, with a glance at the monk, who had drawn back a pace and stood, still silent, fingering his rosary. "The matter? Good Lord! isn't _this_ matter enough?" Captain Jo waved an arm to include all the deck-cargo. "See them pot-plants, there, and what they'm teeled [1] in?" "Drinking-troughs?" said I. "Or . . . is it coffins?" "Coffins it is. I'd feel easier in mind if you could tell me what your father (God bless him) will say to it." "But what has all this to do with my father?" I demanded, and, seeking Billy's eyes, found them as frankly full of amaze as my own. "Not but what," continued Captain Jo, "they've behaved well, though dog-sick to a man from the time we left port. Look at 'em!"--he caught me by the arm and, drawing me to the hatchway, pointed down to the hold. "A round score and eight, and all well paid for as passengers; but for the return journey I won't answer. It depends on your father, and that"--with a jerk of his thumb towards the tall monk--"I stippilated when I shipped 'em. 'Never you mind,' was the answer I got; 'take 'em to England to Sir John Constantine.' And here they be!" "But who on earth are they?" I cried, staring down into the gloom, where presently I made out that the men stretched in the straw at the horses' feet were monks all, and habited like the monk on the deck behind me. To him next I turned, to find his eyes, which were dark and quick, searching me curiously; and as I turned he made a step forward, put out a hand as if to touch me on the shirt-sleeve, and anon drew it back, yet still continued to regard me. "You are a son, signor, of Sir John Constantine?" he asked, in soft Italian. "I am his only son, sir," I answered him in the same language. "Ah! You speak my tongue?" A gleam of joy passed over his grave features. "And you are his son? So! I should have guessed it at once, for you bear great likeness to him." "You know my father, sir?" "Years ago." His hands, which he used expressively, seemed to grope in a far past. "I come to him also from one who knew him years ago." "Upon what business, sir!--if I am allowed to ask." "I bring a message." "You bring a tolerably full one, then," said I, glancing first at the disorder on deck and from that down to the recumbent figures in the hold. "I speak for them," he went on, having followed the glance. "It is most necessary that they keep silence; but I speak for all." "Then, sir, as it seems to me, you have much to say." "No," he answered slowly; "very little, I think; very little, as you will see."