leisurely, he skirted the embattled wall, and passed through the
great gates into the courtyard. Half-a-dozen soldiers lounged there,
and in the shadow cast by the wall, Major Mallard, the Commandant, was
slowly pacing. He stopped short at sight of Captain Blood, and saluted
him, as was his due, but the smile that lifted the officer's stiff
mostachios was grimly sardonic. Peter Blood's attention, however, was
elsewhere.

On his right stretched a spacious garden, beyond which rose the white
house that was the residence of the Deputy-Governor. In that garden's
main avenue, that was fringed with palm and sandalwood, he had caught
sight of Miss Bishop alone. He crossed the courtyard with suddenly
lengthened stride.

"Good-morning to ye, ma'am," was his greeting as he overtook her; and
hat in hand now, he added on a note of protest: "Sure, it's nothing less
than uncharitable to make me run in this heat."

"Why do you run, then?" she asked him coolly, standing slim and straight
before him, all in white and very maidenly save in her unnatural
composure. "I am pressed," she informed him. "So you will forgive me if
I do not stay."

"You were none so pressed until I came," he protested, and if his thin
lips smiled, his blue eyes were oddly hard.

"Since you perceive it, sir, I wonder that you trouble to be so
insistent."

That crossed the swords between them, and it was against Blood's
instincts to avoid an engagement.

"Faith, you explain yourself after a fashion," said he. "But since it
was more or less in your service that I donned the King's coat, you
should suffer it to cover the thief and pirate."

She shrugged and turned aside, in some resentment and some regret.
Fearing to betray the latter, she took refuge in the former. "I do my
best," said she.

"So that ye can be charitable in some ways!" He laughed softly. "Glory
be, now, I should be thankful for so much. Maybe I'm presumptuous. But
I can't forget that when I was no better than a slave in your uncle's
household in Barbados, ye used me with a certain kindness."

"Why not? In those days you had some claim upon my kindness. You were
just an unfortunate gentleman then."

"And what else would you be calling me now?"

"Hardly unfortunate. We have heard of your good fortune on the seas--how
your luck has passed into a byword. And we have heard other things: of
your good fortune in other directions."

She spoke hastily, the thought of Mademoiselle d'Ogeron i