ished.

Cicely returned to Christopher to find him sitting up in bed drinking a
bowl of broth.

"Oh, my husband, my husband," she said, casting her arms about him. Then
she took her son and laid him upon his father's breast.

Three days had gone by and Christopher and Cicely were walking in the
shrubbery of Shefton Hall. By now, although still weak, he was almost
recovered, whose only sickness had been grief and famine, for which
joy and plenty are wonderful medicines. It was evening, a pleasant and
beautiful early winter evening just fading into night. Seated on a bench
he had been telling her his adventures, and they were a moving tale
worthy, as Cicely wrote afterwards in a letter to old Jacob Smith that
is still extant in her fine, quaint handwriting, to be recorded in a
book, though this it would seem was never done.

He told her of the great fight on the ship _Great Yarmouth_, when they
were taken by the two Turkish pirates, and of how bravely Father Martin
bore himself. Afterwards when they came to the galleys, by good fortune
Martin, Jeffrey and he served on the same bench. Then Martin fell sick
of some Southern fever, and being in port at Tunis at the time, where
they could get fruit, they nursed him back to life and strength. Four
months later the Emperor Charles attacked Tunis, and when it fell,
through God's mercy, they were rescued with the other Christian slaves,
after which Martin returned to England taking old Sir John's writings to
be delivered to his next heir, for they all believed Cicely to be dead.

But Christopher and Jeffrey, having nothing to seek at home, stayed to
fight with the Spaniards against the Turks, who had oppressed them so
sorely. When that war was over they made their way back to England,
not knowing where else to go and having a score to settle against the
Spanish Abbot of Blossholme, and--well, she knew the rest.

Aye, answered Cicely, she knew it and never would forget it, but it
was chill for him sitting on that bench, he must come in. Christopher
laughed at her, and answered--

"Sweetheart, if you could have seen the bench on which it was my lot
to sit yonder off the coast of Africa, but new recovered from the wound
which I had of Maldon's men at Cranwell Towers, you would not be anxious
for me here. There for six long months chained to Jeffrey and to Father
Martin, for it pleased those heathen devils to keep the three of us
together, perhaps that they might watch us be