it impossible that we should part friends? Once I
wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't you... won't
you say 'good-bye'?"

He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate
harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke, his
eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her.

"You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian be
going with you?"

"Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly.

"Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?"

"No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It touched me
very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my injustice. I owe
it to you that I should say this by way of amend. I judged too harshly
where it was a presumption to judge at all."

He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked, his
eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured face.

"Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is nothing
more for him to do out here."

"But didn't he ask you to go with him?"

"He did. I forgive you the impertinence."

A wild hope leapt to life within him.

"And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become my
lady, when...."

"Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed away from
him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was speeding to the door.

He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes
stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think! Release
me!"

"Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it? Must I
release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye
stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och,
ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?"

"I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her tears.

"Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...."

"There was never, never anybody but you, Peter."

They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that
they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot
the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was
ended.

And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel
had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet.
He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade.

A corporal's guard was