the powder room--he rushed
down to where that cabin was, his sword in hand, his brain on fire at
the revenge before him.

"Now! now! now!" he murmured. "At last!"

Under the poop he went, down the aftermost companion ladder, through a
large cabin--the officers' living room--and then to a smaller one
beyond, opening out of the other on the starboard side--the cabin
from which he had seen the livid, horror-stricken face of his enemy.
But it was closed tight and would not give to his hand.

"Open," he called; "open, you hound, open! You cannot escape me now.
Open, I say!"

There came no word in answer. All was silent within, though, above,
the roars and callings of the sailors made a terrible din.

"You hear?" again cried St. Georges, "you hear those men? Open, I say,
and meet your death like a man! Otherwise you die like a dog! One way
you must die. They are setting fire to the magazine. Cur, open!"

The bolt grated from within as he spoke, and the door was thrown
aside. De Roquemaure stood before him.

Yet his appearance caused St. Georges to almost stagger back, alarmed.
Was this the man he had dreamed so long of meeting once again, this
creature before him! De Roquemaure was without coat, vest, or shirt;
his body was bare; through his right shoulder a terrible wound, around
which the blood was caked and nearly dry. His face, too, was as white
as when he had first seen it from the boat, his eyes as staring.

"So," he said, "it is you, _alive_! Well, you have come too late. I
have got my death. What think you I care for the sailors or the powder
room? I was struck yesterday by some of the Englishmen who passed here
as the tide turned, who fired into this ship ere the tide--the
tide--the----"

"Yet will I make that death sure!" St. Georges cried, springing at
him. "Wounds do not always kill. You may recover this--from my thrust
you shall never recover!"--and he shortened his sword to thrust it
through his bare body.

"I am unarmed," the other wailed. "Mercy! I cannot live!"

"Ay, the mercy you showed me! The attempted murder of my child--the
theft of her, the murder perhaps done by now--the galleys! Quick, your
last prayer!"

Yet even as he spoke he knew that he was thwarted again. He could not
strike, not slay, the thing before him. The villain was so weakened by
his wound that he could scarce stand, even though grasping a bulkhead
with his two hands; was--must be--dying. Why take his death,
therefore, up