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It was then De Noyan finally returned and found me raging from wall to wall like one distracted. It required but a glance to note the subtile change the afternoon had wrought in his personal appearance, yet at the time I did not greatly marvel at it.
"Time enough to tell my story when we are beyond danger," I returned tartly, annoyed by his awkwardness. "If you utter another word before we are around yonder headland, I will have De Noyan hoist you overboard." I saw him glance askance at the unconscious Chevalier as if mentally calculating his ability to perform the feat.
One of these was Noyan, the son-in-law of Lefrenier. He was a young man, and but recently united to the beautiful and accomplished daughter of the gallant Lefrenier. His youth, his chivalry, and extraordinary intrepidity excited the admiration of the cold, cruel O'Reilly, and he was offered a pardon.
Could she control the fierce blood-lust of those savage fanatics? If she cared to do so, would she dare test her power in so desperate a game? If one must be sacrificed which would she spare, De Noyan or his hapless wife? Looking at her, cold, cynical, lustful, her eyes still turned on his face, I felt no doubt.
"Madame de Noyan," I said deliberately, my voice seeming to falter with the intensity of my feelings, "I beg you do not expect too much from me. Your appeal has been made to a simple frontiersman, unskilled in war except with savages, and it is hardly probable I shall be able to outwit the trained guardsmen of Spain. Yet this I will say: I have determined to venture all at your desire.
Discovering De Noyan comfortably settled against a tree-trunk, pipe in mouth, already beginning to look sleepy about the eyes, I muttered in his hearing a word or two regarding a fishing trip into deeper water along the opposite shore, and, quietly leaving him to unsuspicious repose, slipped down to where our boat was tied beneath the tree shadows.
'T is not only that she jeered at me with cruel smiles, and affronted a preacher of the Word by so ribald a covering; she did as clearly reveal the hideous sin of her heart unto that sweet lady we have in our keeping." "Madame de Noyan?" I cried in awakened interest. "Mean you this woman dared do wrong by her?"
It bobbed crazily about, barely above the surface of the river, like some living creature, while now and then I marked a glimmer of light behind, as if the water was being vigorously churned by some species of swimming apparatus in the monster's tail. "Stand by with your small sword, De Noyan," I commanded uneasily, "for, hang me if I ever before set eyes on such a creature!
"This is likely to prove a night when comrades will need to know each other. Now a few questions, after which I will look over the ground before attempting to outline any plan of action. You say, Madame, that your Chevalier de Noyan is a prisoner on the fleet in the river. Upon which ship is he confined?" "The 'Santa Maria." "The 'Santa Maria'? if memory serve, the largest of them all?"
There were twelve oars in the boat passing us on the lower river, while four others sat with guns in their hands; besides these are the Marquis de Serrato and the Capuchin priest, making a total of eighteen, all of whom we must reckon upon as being fighting men at a pinch." "Faith, merely enough to make the affair of interest," muttered De Noyan, as I explained my words to him.
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