uddenly. "You send
me back to hell again." He writhed his whole body. "Sorrow!" he said, "I
know it. But what's this? What's _this?_"

The many reasons he had for sorrow flashed on me like a procession of
sombre images.

"Dead and done with a man can bear," he muttered. "But this--Not to
know--perhaps alive--perhaps hidden--She may be dead...." With a change
like a flash he was commanding me.

"Tell me how you escaped."

I had a vague inspiration of the truth.

"You aren't fit for a decent man's speaking to," I said.

"You let her drown."

It gave me suddenly the measure of his ignorance; he did not know
anything--nothing. His hell was uncertainty. Well, let him stay there.

"Where is she?" he said. "Where is she?"

"Where she's no need to fear you," I answered.

He had a sudden convulsive gesture, as if searching for a weapon.

"If you'll tell me she's alive..." he began.

"Oh, I'm not dead," I answered.

"Never a drowned puppy was more," he said, with a flash of vivacity.
"You hang here--for murder--or in England for piracy."

"Then I've little to want to live for," I sneered at him.

"You let her drown," he said. "You took her from that house, a young
girl, in a little boat. And you can hold up your head."

"I was trying to save her from you," I answered.

"By God," he said. "These English--I've seen them, spit the child on the
mother's breast. I've seen them set fire to the thatch of the widow and
childless. But this.... But this.... I can save you, I tell you."

"You can't make me go through worse than I've borne," I answered. Sorrow
and all he might wish on my head, my life was too precious to him till I
spoke. I wasn't going to speak.

"I'll search every ship in the harbour," he said passionately.

"Do," I said. "Bring your _Lugarenos_ to the task."

Upon the whole, I wasn't much afraid. Unless he got definite evidence he
couldn't--in the face of the consul's protests, and the presence of the
admiral--touch the _Lion_ again. He fixed his eyes intently upon me.

"You came in the American brigantine," he said. "It's known you landed
in her boat."

I didn't answer him; it was plain enough that the _drogher's_ arrival
had either not been reported to him, or it had been searched in vain.

"In her boat," he repeated. "I tell you I know she is not dead; even
you, an Englishman, must have a different face if she were."

"I don't at least ask you for life," I said, "to enjoy with her."

"Sh