The Gentleman walked slowly up and down before the window. "We needn't enter into that," he said, cold as death. The Parson launched a slow laughing sneer, terrible to hear. "What! more gentlemanliness from our Gentleman!" The words whipped the other's face white. He stopped in his walk, and lifted slow eyes. "It may be that I have loved my country better than my God," he said. A smile flashed across his face--"_But what a country to be damned for!_" Slowly he came towards the cottage. "To return to the point. Nelson is lost. No power on earth can save him now." "I do not look to any power on earth for help," replied the Parson solemnly. "Let us talk as men," answered the other as solemn. "You have nothing to gain by holding out, and everything to lose. All that an honourable soldier could do you have done. Is it not now the part of true courage to accept the inevitable? For the last time, will you surrender?" The great veins started on the Parson's forehead. "Never!" he bawled. "Do your d'dest!" The Gentleman turned and turned again. "The blood of those boys be on your head, Mr. Joy!" "Let the boys answer for themselves," retorted the Parson, short and sullen. The Gentleman paused. "Little Chap," he called, "will you come?--France is a fair country. You shall have Monsieur Moon-calf there for squire. Myself I will see to it that you are happy." "I would rather be dead in England than alive in France," the boy answered passionately. "What about you, Blob?" "Here Oi be and here Oi boide," replied Blob doggedly, and dulled the romance of the statement by adding--"Oi aren't got ma money yet." "Think twice, Little Chap!" called the Gentleman. "You are young. You are happy. The day is before you. The night is not yet. It is early to draw down the blinds." The Parson had turned his back to the window. "Ask the ass for time," he whispered. "We must have time." The boy leaned out. "May I have ten minutes to think it over, sir?" "Two, my boy." "Oh, sir!" pitiful, appealing. The Gentleman glanced across his shoulder, and turned again. "Ah, well! five be it." He took out his watch, and sat on the wall with dangling legs. CHAPTER LXVIII THE BLESSING I "I must have a word with Piper." The Parson was down the ladder in a flash. The old foretop-man, humming his hymn in the eternal twilight, turned. "Well, sir?" "You've heard, Piper?" "I've hard, sir. And if so be a common seaman might make so bold, there's but one thing for it, and that's the cold steel." He laid his Bible aside and took up his cutlass. "It's a forlorn hope, Piper." "It's the only one, sir." The Parson swung round. "And there's another thing," he cried in terrible agony. "What about you, Piper? We shall take it in the open; but _you_, you'll have to wait for it. I _can't_ leave you to fall alive into the hands of those--those--O my God! my God!" stamping up and down. There was quiet thrill in the voice that answered,