and to go through with whatever might await him sooner than be guilty of
such a baseness; the next moment that same resolve would set him
shuddering again as he viewed the inevitable consequences that must
attend it.

Suddenly the captain set him a question, very softly, that fired the
train and blew all his lingering self-resistance into shreds.

"You'll ha' borne my warning to Sir Oliver?" he asked, lowering his
voice so as not to be overheard by the vintner who was stirring beyond
the thin wooden partition.

Master Lionel nodded, nervously fingering the jewel in his ear, his eyes
shifting from their consideration of the seaman's coarse, weather-tanned
and hairy countenance.

"I did," he said. "But Sir Oliver is headstrong. He will not stir."

"Will he not?" The captain stroked his bushy red beard and cursed
profusely and horribly after the fashion of the sea. "Od's wounds!
He's very like to swing if he bides him here."

"Ay," said Lionel, "if he bides." He felt his mouth turn dry as he
spoke; his heart thudded, but its thuds were softened by a slight
insensibility which the liquor had produced in him.

He uttered the words in so curious a tone that the sailor's dark eyes
peered at him from under his heavy sandy eyebrows. There was alert
inquiry in that glance. Master Lionel got up suddenly.