'What are you asking of her?' said Althea; 'should not such a marriage
be celebrated on English ground?'

'So it shall,' said he; 'for we will be wedded on board the ship that
shall take us to Hull; and her planks, being those of an English vessel,
are reckoned English ground. Now, what says my dear heart?' and as I
blushed and stammered, 'I warrant you,' said he, 'Lucy is struck dumb at
my presumption in talking of wedlock, my good ship being gone to wreck,
and I myself newly loosed from slavery.'

'Harry!' I cried, 'how dare you think so meanly of me? I who have been
delighting in the thought of pouring all my little wealth at your feet,
and bidding you freight a new ship with it; but perhaps you are too
proud--you will refuse it?'

'Nay, I refuse neither it nor thee, my Lucy,' he said, 'the less because
I can counterpoise my darling's little purse with something weightier.'
And he told us briefly how in his captivity he had risen very high in
his Moorish master's favour, having had the good fortune to save the
man's life at the risk of his own.

'There were two rascals set on my master to murder him, for certain
precious jewels that he wore,' said he; 'and I had the luck to lay them
both low, though I got this little remembrance first from the fiercest
of them,' touching as he spoke the scar upon his cheek. 'And with that
stroke,' he went on, 'I purchased my freedom, and something more; for
the Moor conferred on me freely those gems that the thieves had coveted;
they are worth a little fortune. After this my only care was to find a
ship to bring me home; of which I was almost in despair, when the good