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Yet, so challenged, when had passed that moment, he met Baldry's gloomy eyes, and again assured the adventurer that the presence of so brave a man and redoubted fighter could but do honor to the Cygnet. His words were all that courtesy could desire: if tone and manner were of the coldest, yet Baldry, not being sensitive, and having gained his point, could afford to let that pass.
The Admiral's grave tones prevented Baldry's answer. "Do you appeal to me as Admiral? Then I also adjudge you the command of the galleon. The Star did very valiantly; look to it that the Phoenix prove no laggard." "Hear me swear that I will make her more famous than is Drake's Golden Hind!" cried Baldry, his exultation breaking bounds. "Sir John, you have knowledge of men, and I thank you!
As this is also John Baldry's habit, he prayed me to allow him to accept his invitation to share his room." "What he says about his habits is true, my lady. I can well understand my uncle cares not for company where it would not be seemly for him to raise his voice, or to enter into a hot argument, on some point of arms." "What were the services of which Sir Henry speaks?"
Three days later they came to Teneriffe, and to their great rejoicing found there the Mere Honour and the Marigold. In his state-cabin, when he had given his Captains welcome, the Admiral sat at table with his wine before him and heard how had fared the Cygnet and the Marigold, then listened to Baldry's curt recital of the Star's ill destinies.
His tone was of simple wonder, and there went round the board a laugh for Baldry's boasting. That adventurer started to his feet, his eyes, that were black, deep-set, and very bright, fixed upon Ferne. "That also," he answered. "An I should die before our swords cross, that also!" He turned and left the cabin.
Baldry's great figure at their head, Baldry's great voice shouting encouragement, they strove to pass the trench, to rush upon and overwhelm the masked batteries, the hidden marksmen. An effectual chevaux-de-frise, the pointed stakes withstood them, tore them, and threw them back.
"'Of honey and of gall in love there is store: The honey is much, but the gall is more," thereby bringing upon himself one of Baldry's black glances. "Lieutenant Sedley," ordered Ferne, sharply, "you will lodge this gentleman in the cabin next mine own, seeing that he hath all needful entertainment. Sir, I do expect your company at dinner."
The latter, in the instant that passed before he made any answer to Baldry's challenging look, saw once again that vision of the other morning the flare of dawn, and high against it one desperate figure, a man just balancing if to keep his life or no, seeing that for the thing he loved there was no rescue.
The Star was down below, a hundred leagues from any lover, and the sea was deep upon her, and her guns were silent and her decks untrodden.... He was wearied of Baldry's company, impatient of his mad temper and peasant breeding, very sure that he chose, open-eyed, to torment himself from Teneriffe to America with the sight of a prospering foe merely that that foe might feel a nettle in his unwilling grasp.
Below it suddenly sprang out two lights, one above the other, and to the Cygnet, safe, though with her plumage sadly ruffled, came the sound of a gun twice fired. The darkness faded, the gray light strengthened, and showed to the watchers upon the Cygnet's decks the ship in distress. It was Baldry's ship, the little Star.
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