“Ay,” I answered, “but tell me the news as we go. I have been gone ten days,--faith, it seems ten years! There have no ships sailed, Master Pory? The George is still here?” I looked him full in the eye, for a sudden guess at a possible reason for his confusion had stabbed me like a knife. “Ay,” he said, with a readiness that could scarce be feigned. “She was to have sailed this week, it is true, the Governor fearing to keep her longer. But the Esperance, coming in yesterday, brought news which removed his Honor's scruples. Now she'll wait to see out this hand at the cards, and to take home the names of those who are left alive in Virginia. If the red varlets do swarm in upon us, there are her twelve-pounders; they and the fort guns”-- I let him talk on. The George had not sailed. I saw again a firelit hut, and a man and a panther who went down together. Those claws had dug deep; the man across whose face they had torn their way would keep his room in the guest house at Jamestown until his wounds were somewhat healed. The George would wait for him, would scarcely dare to sail without him, and I should find the lady whom she was to carry away to England in Virginia still. It was this that I had built upon, the grain of comfort, the passionate hope, the sustaining cordial, of those year-long days in the village above the Pamunkey. My heart was sore because of Diccon; but I could speak of that grief to her, and she would grieve with me. There were awe and dread and stern sorrow in the knowledge that even now in the bright spring morning blood from a hundred homes might be flowing to meet the shining, careless river; but it was the springtime, and she was waiting for me. I strode on toward the stairway so fast that when I asked a question Master Pory, at my side, was too out of breath to answer it. Halfway down the stairs I asked it again, and again received no answer save a “Zooks! you go too fast for my years and having in flesh! Go more slowly, Ralph Percy; there's time enough, there's time enough!” There was a tone in his voice that I liked not, for it savored of pity. I looked at him with knitted brows; but we were now in the hall, and through the open door of the great room I caught a glimpse of a woman's skirt. There were men in the hall, servants and messengers, who made way for us, staring at me as they did so, and whispering. I knew that my clothing was torn and muddied and stained with blood; as we paused at the door there came to me in a flash that day in the courting meadow when I had tried with my dagger to scrape the dried mud from my boots. I laughed at myself for caring now, and for thinking that she would care that I was not dressed for a lady's bower. The next moment we were in the great room.