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Both hands strained toward the blue sky, as though he made a vow. If so, he did not break it. And now no more of Perion. At the same hour young Melicent, wrapped all about with a flame-coloured veil and crowned with marjoram, was led by a spruce boy toward a threshold, over which Demetrios lifted her, while many people sang in a strange tongue. And then she paid her ransom.
My consolation was that Demetrios was as often compelled to do the same thing. The strong ebb-tide, racing down the Straits in the teeth of the wind, caused an unusually heavy and spiteful sea, which dashed aboard continually. I was dripping wet, and even the sail was wet half-way up the after leech. Once I did succeed in outmanoeuvring Demetrios, so that my bow bumped into him amidships.
Sunday came, and with it came Demetrios Contos, to break the law defiantly in open day. Again we had the afternoon sea-breeze, and again Demetrios cut loose some forty or more feet of his rotten net, and got up sail and under way under our very noses. But he had anticipated Charley's move, and his own sail peaked higher than ever, while a whole extra cloth had been added to the after leech.
Charley and I had been sceptical, but the fact of the crowd convinced us that there was something in Demetrios Contos's dare. In the afternoon, when the sea-breeze had picked up in strength, his sail hove into view as he bowled along before the wind.
"Oh, but to-day I find a cure for every ill," said Melicent; and thereupon she left Orestes as a princess should. But first she knelt by that which yesterday had been her master. "I have no word of praise or blame to give you in farewell. You were not admirable, Demetrios.
Charley mooned over it for a couple of days; then word was brought to us, as before, that on the next Sunday Demetrios Contos would repeat his performance. Charley roused himself.
I shall be happier when death has taken the woman who ventures to deal in this fashion with Demetrios." Said Perion: "When I first saw Dame Melicent the sea was languid, as if outworn by vain endeavours to rival the purple of her eyes. Sea-birds were adrift in the air, very close to her and their movements were less graceful than hers.
Their gold was given to the captain; and, in exchange, the bargain ran, his ship would touch at Assignano, a little after the ensuing dawn, and take Demetrios aboard. Thus the two lovers of Melicent foreplanned the future, and did not admit into their accounting vagarious Dame Chance. How Flamberge Was Lost
And the tale tells how Perion sailed with his retainers to seek desperate service under the harried Kaiser of the Greeks. This venture was ill-fated, since, as the Free Companions were passing not far from Masillia, their vessel being at the time becalmed, they were attacked by three pagan galleys under the admiralty of the proconsul Demetrios.
And it seemed, too, to Perion, in the moment of waking, that Dame Melusine, whom Perion had loved so long ago, also stood among them; yet, now that Perion rose and faced Demetrios, she was not visible anywhere, and Perion wondered dimly over his wild dream that she had been there at all. But more importunate matters were in hand. The proconsul grinned malevolently.
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