Dona heard herself saying sharply in a clear cold voice, 'Was he wounded at all? I don't understand.'
'Wounded? God bless me, no. He'll hang without a scratch on him, and he'll know what it feels like. The devilry up here had delayed him, you see, and those three other scoundrels, and they were making for a point below Helford to join their vessel in mid-river. He must have told the rest of his crew to get the ship under way when he was up at the house. God knows how they managed it, but they did. When Eustick and the others got down to the point agreed upon, there was the ship in mid-stream, and the fellows swimming out to her, all but their leader, and he was standing on the beach, as cool as a blade of steel, fighting two of our people at once, while his men got away. He kept shouting over his shoulder to them in his damned lingo as they swam to the ship, and though the boats were launched from the beaches, as we arranged, they were too late to catch the scoundrels or the ship. She sailed out of Helford with a roaring tide under her, and a fair wind on her quarter, and the Frenchman watched her go, and God damn it, he was laughing, Eustick said.'
As Harry spoke it seemed to Dona that she could see the river where it broadened, and met the sea, and she could hear the wind in the rigging of La Mouette as she had heard it once, and the escape would be a repetition of all the escapes that had gone before, but this time they sailed without their captain, this time they went alone. Pierre Blanc, Edmond Vacquier, and the rest, they had left him there on the beach because he had bid them do so, and she guessed what his words must have been, as he stood there, facing his enemies, while they swam to the ship. He had saved his crew, and he had saved his ship, and even now, in whatever prison he found himself, that calm unfettered brain of his would be working and planning some new method of escape, and she realised now that she was stunned and afraid no longer, for the manner of his capture had killed all fear within her.
'Where have they taken him then?' she asked, rising now, throwing on the ground the wrap that Harry had put round her shoulders. He told her, 'George Godolphin has him in the keep, strongly guarded, and they're for moving him up to Exeter or Bristol when an escort comes down for him in forty-eight hours.'
'And what then?'
'Why, they'll hang him, Dona, unless George and Eustick and the rest of us save His Majesty's servants the trouble of doing so, and hang him on Saturday midday, as a treat to the people.'
They entered the house, and she stood now on the spot where he had bidden her farewell, and she said, 'Would that be within the law?'
'No, perhaps not,' said Harry, 'but I don't think His Majesty would trouble us for a reason.'
So there was little time to lose, she thought, and much to be done. She remembered the words he had spoken: how the most hazardous performance was often the most successful. That was a piece of advice she would repeat to herself continually during the next hours, for if any situation appeared beyond all saving and all hope, the saving of him did so at this moment.
'You are all right again, are you not?' said Harry anxiously, putting an arm about her. 'It was the shock of poor Rock's death I believe that made you so strange these two days. That was it, wasn't it?'
'Perhaps,' she said. 'I don't know. It does not matter. But I am well again now. There is no need for you to be anxious.'
'I want to see you well,' he repeated. 'That's all I care about, damn it, to see you well and happy.' And he stared down at her, his blue eyes humble with adoration, and he reached clumsily for her hand.
'We'll go to Hampshire, then, shall we?' he said.
'Yes,' she answered, 'yes, Harry, we'll go to Hampshire.' And she sat down on the low seat before the fireplace where no fire burnt because it was midsummer, and she stared at the place where the flames should have been while Harry, forgetting that Navron had been a house of death called, 'Hi, Duke… Hi, Duchess, your mistress says she'll come with us to Hampshire. Find it, then, go seek.'
It was imperative of course that she should see Godolphin, and talk to him, and persuade him into granting her an interview alone with his prisoner. That part of it should be easy, because Godolphin was a fool. She would flatter him, and during the interview she could pass weapons, a knife or a pistol if she could procure one, and so far, so good, because the actual method of escape could not be of her choosing. They supped quietly, she and Harry, in the salon before the open window, and soon afterwards Dona went up to her room, pleading weariness, and he had the intuition to say nothing, and to let her go alone.
When she was undressed, and lying in her bed, her mind full of her visit to Godolphin, and how she should achieve it, she heard a gentle tapping at her door. 'Surely,' she thought, her heart sinking, 'it is not Harry, in this new wistful penitent mood, not to-night.' But when she did not answer, hoping he would think her asleep, the tapping came again. Then the latch lifted, and it was Prue standing there in her nightgown, a candle in her hand, and Dona saw that her eyes were red and swollen with crying.
'What is it?' said Dona, sitting up at once. 'Is it James?'
'No, my lady,' whispered Prue, 'the children are asleep. It's only-it's only that I have something to tell you, my lady.' And she began weeping again, rubbing her eyes with her hand.
'Come in, and shut the door,' said Dona. 'What is the matter, then, why are you crying? Have you broken something? I shall not scold you.'
The girl continued to weep, and glancing about her, as though afraid that Harry himself might be there, and would hear her, she whispered between her tears, 'It's about William, my lady, I have done something very wicked.'
'Oh heaven,' thought Dona, she has been seduced by William while I was away in La Mouette, and now because he has gone, she is afraid and ashamed, and thinks she will have a baby, and that I will send her away, and 'Don't be afraid, Prue,' she said softly, 'I won't be angry. What is it about William? You can tell me, you know. I shall understand.'
'He was always very good to me,' said Prue, 'and most attentive to me and the children, when you were ill, my lady. He could not do too much for us. And after the children were asleep, he used to come and sit with me, while I did my sewing, and he used to tell me about the countries he had visited, and I found it very pleasant.'
'I expect you did,' said Dona, 'I should have found it pleasant too.'
'I never thought,' said the girl, sobbing afresh, 'that he had anything to do with foreigners, or with these terrible pirates we had heard about. He was not rough in his ways at all, with me.'
'No,' said Dona, 'I hardly suppose he was.'
'And I know it was very wrong of me, my lady, not to have told Sir Harry and the other gentlemen that night, when there was all that terrible to-do, and they came bursting out of their rooms, and poor Lord Rockingham was killed, but I had not the heart to give him up, my lady. So faint he was with loss of blood, and as white as a ghost, I just could not do it. If it's found out I shall be beaten and sent to prison, but he said I must tell you, whatever happened.'
And she stood there, twisting her hands, with the tears-running down her cheeks.
'Prue,' said Dona, swiftly, 'what are you trying to tell me?'
'Only that I hid William in the nursery that night, my lady, when I found him lying in the passage, with a cut on his arm, and another on the back of his head. And he told me then that Sir Harry and the other gentlemen would kill him if he was found, that the French pirate was his master, and there had been fighting at Navron that night. So, instead of giving him up, my lady, I bathed and dressed his wounds, and I made him up a bed on the floor beside the children, and after breakfast, when the gentlemen were all away searching for him and the other pirates, I let him out, my lady, by the side-door, and no one knows anything about it but you and me.'
She blew her nose noisily on her handkerchief, and would have cried again. But Dona smiled at her, and leaning forward patted her shoulder, and said, 'It's all right, Prue. You are a good faithful girl to tell me this, and I shall keep it to myself. I am fond of William, too, and should be greatly distressed if any harm came to him. But I want you to tell me something. Where is William now?'
'He said something about Coverack when he woke, my lady, and asked for you, and I told him you were in bed, very shocked and exhausted, as Lord Rockingham had been killed in the night. At that he seemed to think a while, my lady, and then when I had bathed and dressed his wounds afresh he said he had friends at Gweek who would shelter him, and would not betray him, and that he would be there if you wished to send word to him, my lady.'
'At Gweek?' said Dona. 'Very well then, Prue. I want you to go back to bed, and think no more of this, and to say nothing of it ever again, to anyone, not even to me. Go on as you have always done, won't you Prue, and look after the children, and love them well.'
'Yes, my lady,' said Prue, and she curtseyed, her tears still near the surface, and left the room, and went
