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"There's no better head in the isle than mine for measurement and thinking, and I swore no man under eighteen stone could carry me, and I am twenty-five I take you to be nineteen stone, eh?" "Nineteen, less two ounces," grinned Buonespoir. "I'll laugh De Carteret of St. Ouen's out of his stockings over this," answered Lempriere. "Trust me for knowing weights and measures!
Elizabeth's lips parted in a smile, for she was warmed with the luxury of doing good, and she answered: "I know not what the end of this will be, whether our loyal Lempriere will become a pirate or Buonespoir a butler to my Court; but it is too pretty a hazard to forego in a world of chance.
"This rascal of the sea Buonespoir you will have safe bestowed till I recall his existence again," she said to a captain of men-at-arms; "and you, Monsieur of Rozel, since you are my butler, will get you to my dining-room, and do your duty the office is not all perquisites," she added smoothly.
"Trouble, trouble, trouble, like gnats on a filly's flank!" and in spluttering words, twice bracketed in muscadella, he told of Michel de la Foret's arrest, and of his purpose to go to England if he could get a boat to take him. "'Tis that same business brings me here," said Buonespoir, and forthwith told of his meeting with Angele and what was then agreed upon.
"The criminal was one Buonespoir, the occasion our coming hither to wait upon the Queen of England and our Lady of Normandy, for such is your well-born Majesty to your loyal Jersiais." And thereupon he plunged into an impeachment of De Carteret of St. Ouen's, and stumbled through a blunt broken story of the wrongs and the sorrows of Michel and Angele and the doings of Buonespoir in their behalf.
A wave of humour passed over Angele's grave face, for a stranger quartet never sailed high seas together: one blind of an eye, one game of a leg, one bald as a bottle and bereft of two front teeth; but Buonespoir was sound of wind and limb, his small face with the big eyes lost in the masses of his red hair, and a body like Hercules.
Angele came forward as if to stay Buonespoir, but stopped short reflectively. As she did so, the Duke's Daughter whispered quickly into Lempriere's ear. Swelling with pride he nodded, and said: "I will reach him and discover myself to him, and bring him, if he stray, most undoubted and infallible lady," and with an air of mystery he made a heavily respectful exit.
"Muscadella," said Buonespoir, and lowered the basket to the table. Lempriere seized a flagon, drew it forth, looked closely at it, then burst into laughter, and spluttered: "St. Ouen's muscadella, by the hand of Rufus!" Seizing Buonespoir by the shoulders, he forced him down upon a bench at the table, and pushed the trencher of spiced meat against his chest.
"As many chances 'gainst it as for it, M'sieu'," said Buonespoir, turning his face to the north, for the wind had veered again to north-east, and he feared its passing to the north-west, giving them a head-wind and a swooping sea. Night came down, but with a clear sky and a bright moon; the wind, however, not abating.
But a few old fishermen on shore at Carteret shook their heads dubiously, and at Port Bail, some miles below, a disabled naval officer, watching through a glass, rasped out, "Criminals or fools!" But he shrugged his shoulders, for if they were criminals he was sure they would expiate their crimes this night, and if they were fools he had no pity for fools. But Buonespoir knew his danger.
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