is
because I see fit to do so, and not because of your suggestion, my lord.
You wish to take this opportunity to have speech with him,--to that I
can have no objection."

The speaker moved away. As his footsteps died in the distance my lord
laughed, and his merriment was echoed by three or four harsh voices.
Some one struck flint against steel, and there was a sudden flare
of torches and the steadier light of a lantern. A man with a brutal,
weather-beaten face--the master of the ship, we guessed--came down the
ladder, lantern in hand, turned when he had reached the foot, and held
up the lantern to light my lord down. I lay and watched the King's
favorite as he descended. The torches held slantingly above cast a fiery
light over his stately figure and the face which had raised him from the
low estate of a doubtful birth and a most lean purse to a pinnacle too
near the sun for men to gaze at with undazzled eyes. In his rich dress
and the splendor of his beauty, with the red glow enveloping him, he lit
the darkness like a baleful star.

The two torchbearers and a third man descended, closing the hatch after
them. When all were down, my lord, the master at his heels, came and
stood over me. I raised myself, though with difficulty, for the fever
had left me weak as a babe, and met his gaze. His was a cruel look; if
I had expected, as assuredly I did not expect, mercy or generosity
from this my dearest foe, his look would have struck such a hope dead.
Presently he beckoned to the men behind him. "Put the manacles upon him
first," he said, with a jerk of his thumb toward Sparrow.

The man who had come down last, and who carried irons enough to fetter
six pirates, started forward to do my lord's bidding. The master glanced
at Sparrow's great frame, and pulled out a pistol. The minister laughed.
"You'll not need it, friend. I know when the odds are too great." He
held out his arms, and the men fettered them wrist to wrist. When they
had finished he said calmly: "'I have seen the wicked in great power,
and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and,
lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.'"

My lord turned from him, and pointed to me. He kept his eyes upon my
face while they shackled me hand and foot; then said abruptly, "You have
cords there: bind his arms to his sides." The men wound the cords around
me many times. "Draw them tight," commanded my lord.

There came a wrathful clan