I still stared at her, not knowing in truth what to say. Then suddenly she caught at my hands with hers, and cried out with that energy that I saw all at once the fire of life beneath that fair show of maiden peace and calm of hers, "Harry, Harry Wingfield, if my grandmother, Madam Cavendish, knows this, my sister is undone; no pity will she have. Straight to the governor will she go, though she hobble on crutches to Jamestown! She would starve ere she would move against the will of the king and his representative, and so would I, but I will not have my little sister put to suffering and shame. God save her, Harry Wingfield, but she might be thrown into prison, and worse--I pray thee, save her, Harry! Whatever ill you have done, and however slightingly I have held you for it, I pray you do this good deed by way of amends, and I will put the memory of your misdeeds behind me." Even then my bewilderment at her mention of my misdeeds, when I verily considered that she, as well as I, knew more of her own, was strong, but I grasped her two little hands hard, then relinquished them, and bowed and said, "Madam, I will save your sister at whatever cost." "And count it not?" said she. "No more than I have done before, madam," said I, and maybe with some little bitterness, for sometimes a woman by persistent goading may almost raise herself to the fighting level of a man. "But how?" said she. "That I must study." "But I charge you to keep it from Madam Cavendish." "You need have no fear." "May God forgive me, but I told Madam Cavendish that the Golden Horn had not arrived," said she, "but what have they done with the rest of the cargo, pray?" I started. I had, I confess, not given that a thought, though it was but reasonable that there was more beside those powder casks, if the revenue from the crops had been so small. But Catherine Cavendish needed but a moment for that problem. "'Twill return," said she. "Captain Tabor hath but sailed off a little distance that he may return and make port, as if for the first time since he left England, and so put them off the scent of the Sabbath unlading of those other wares." She looked down the burnished flow of the river as she spoke, and cried out that she could see a sail, but I, looking also, could not see anything save the shimmer of white and green spring boughs into which the river distance closed. "'Tis the Golden Horn," said Catherine. "I can see naught of white save the locust-blooms," said I. "Locusts stand not against the wind in stiff sheets," said she. "'Tis the sail of the Golden Horn; but that matters not. Harry, Harry Wingfield, can you save my sister?" "I know not whether I can, madam, but I will," said I. VII Mistress Catherine and I returned together to Drake Hill, she bearing herself with a sharp and anxious conciliation, and I with little to say in response, and walking behind her, though she moved more and more slowly that I might gain her side.