s strong hands came at last to drag him away, and then Rene's
voice, in a hot whisper close to his ear, aroused him:

"It is good news, your honour, after all, good news. My Lady is on
board the _Peregrine_. I made these men speak. They are the revenue
men--that God may damn them! and they were after the captain; but he
ran down their cutter, that brave captain. And these are all that were
saved from her, for she sank like a stone. The _Peregrine_ is as sound
as a bell, they say--ah, she is a good ship! And the captain, out of
his kind heart, sent these villains ashore in his own boat, instead of
braining them or throwing them overboard. But they saw a lady beside
him the whole time, tall, in a great black cloak. My Lady in her black
cloak, just as she landed here. Of course Monsieur the Captain could
not have sent her back home with these brigands then--not even a
message--that would have compromised his honour. But his honour can
see now how it is. And though My Lady has been carried out to sea, he
knows now that she is safe."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE THREE COLOURS

The sun was high above the Welsh hills; the _Peregrine_ had sheered
her way through a hundred miles or more of fretted waters before her
captain, in his hammock slung for the nonce near the men's quarters,
stirred from his profound sleep--nature's kind restorer to healthy
brain and limbs--after the ceaseless fatigue and emotions of the last
thirty-six hours.

As he leaped to his feet out of the swinging canvas, the usual vigour
of life coursing through every fibre of him, he fell to wondering, in
half-awake fashion, at the meaning of the unwonted weight lurking in
some back recess of consciousness.

Then memory, the ruthless, arose and buffeted his soul.

The one thing had failed him without which all else was as nothing;
fate, and his own hot blood, had conspired to place his heart's desire
beyond all reasonable hope. Certain phrases in Madeleine's letter
crossed and re-crossed his mind, bringing now an unwonted sting of
anger, now the old cruel pain of last night. The thought of the
hateful complication introduced into his already sufficiently involved
affairs by the involuntary kidnapping of his friend's wife filled him
with a sense of impotent irritation, very foreign to his temper; and
as certain looks and words of the unwished-for prisoner flashed back
upon him, a hot colour rose, even in his solitude, to his wholesome
brown cheek.

But