"My God! What an infamy!" she cried, when he had done.

"Oh, it's a sweet country England under King James! There's no need
to commiserate me further. All things considered I prefer Barbados.
Here at least one can believe in God."

He looked first to right, then to left as he spoke, from the distant
shadowy bulk of Mount Hillbay to the limitless ocean ruffled by the
winds of heaven. Then, as if the fair prospect rendered him
conscious of his own littleness and the insignificance of his woes,
he fell thoughtful.

"Is that so difficult elsewhere?" she asked him, and she was very
grave.

"Men make it so."

"I see." She laughed a little, on a note of sadness, it seemed to
him. "I have never deemed Barbados the earthly mirror of heaven,"
she confessed. "But no doubt you know your world better than I."
She touched her horse with her little silver-hilted whip. "I
congratulate you on this easing of your misfortunes."

He bowed, and she moved on. Her negroes sprang up, and went
trotting after her.

Awhile Peter Blood remained standing there, where she left him,
conning the sunlit waters of Carlisle Bay below, and the shipping
in that spacious haven about which the gulls were fluttering