"She and Brand are in love, and by my honour, Browne, I'm glad, yes glad. That man is royal, the real thing, which I'm not. By our Lady, if you'd seen him fight the _Gigantic_! "And all that time in the cave, six mortal days while he lay raving mad with his wound, he called to her: 'Margaret! Margaret!' Look what he was before, and what he's fallen to because he was loyal." "In love with him," said Browne, under his breath. "Of course she is, I saw them part. Didn't she burst into tears, so that she had to run away." "The message," Browne's voice was broken now; "it saved her reason. I thought----" "The message," said Lancaster, "I forged that message." "Forged it?" "Of course. How could I come to her without a message? That's what Brand would have written if he could. Do you think it was easy for me bringing that message?" "I'd never have dared," said Browne, humbly. "Fancy lying to her!" "Well, I'm her cousin, you know, and you'd have dared all right if you had been there. He was conscious, the fever gone--awful weak, of course, and he couldn't have written a letter to save his life. I did it out of my own head, too, and I hate writing letters. That night I climbed the cliff, and at the top found a young fisherman asleep. The man was in hiding, a criminal, I suppose; but he helped me, and we got Brand up with ropes. Neither of us knew that Ulster was dead, or that the royal yacht was out searching for Brand, or that Lyonesse was retaken for the Queen. I found out all that afterwards. "All we knew was that Brand must escape from England; and he told me to search for a shed, close by where his cottage used to stand. Inside the shed we found a little old ship, the first one that Brand's father ever built, the mother of the Fleet." "What, the _Experiment_? I've read about that." "Yes, the _Experiment_; she was in perfect order, and we got her alive within the hour. I begged Brand to take the fisherman or me, but he would have neither of us. The fisherman must search for Miss Brand, he said, and take her a message. I must go to the Queen. Then he began to get delirious." "You let him go like that!" "He cheated me--said I could come with him, but first I must coil up the rope--he wanted the rope. While I was coiling up the rope the port clanged home, the ship rose with a whirr, drawing up a hurricane of dust and stones. I was dragged off my feet into the air, then fell nearly over the edge of the cliff. He was gone!" "To his death," said Browne. "Who knows?" "And she believes that message!" "I had to confess to some one," said Lancaster, dolefully. "Hello, here's old Branscombe. What's the trouble, Jack?" "Thought you'd gone back to bed, sir." "Bed be damned," said Lancaster, cheerfully. "Why that bereaved smile? More bad news?" Fat Jack sat down panting, leaning his hands on his sword.