The Sea Hawk

which he is concerned to foster. We met in London by a fortunate chance whilst Sir John was about this business at the Court. Now it happens that I, too, have interests in Truro and Penryn; but, unlike Sir John, I am honest in the matter, and proclaim it. If any growth should take place about Smithick it follows from its more advantageous situation that Truro and Penryn must suffer, and that suits me as little as the other matter would suit Sir John. I told him so, for I can be blunt, and I told the Queen in the form of a counter-petition to Sir John’s.” He shrugged. “The moment was propitious to me. I was one of the seamen who had helped to conquer the unconquerable Armada of King Philip. I was therefore not to be denied, and Sir John was sent home as empty-handed as he went to Court. D’ye marvel that he hates me? Knowing him for what he is, d’ye marvel that he dubs me pirate and worse? ’Tis natural enough so to misrepresent my doings upon the sea, since it is those doings have afforded me the power to hurt his profit. He has chosen the weapons of calumny for this combat, but those weapons are not mine, as I shall show him this very day. If you do not credit what I say, come with me and be present at the little talk I hope to have with that curmudgeon.”

“You forget,” said Master Godolphin, “that I, too, have interests in the neighbourhood of Smithick, and that you are hurting those.”

“Soho!” crowed Sir Oliver. “Now at last the sun of truth peeps forth from all this cloud of righteous indignation at my bad Tressilian blood and pirate’s ways! You, too, are but a trafficker. Now see what a fool I am to have believed you sincere, and to have stood here in talk with you as with an honest man.” His voice swelled and his lip curled in a contempt that struck the other like a blow. “I swear I had not wasted breath with you had I known you for so mean and pitiful a fellow.”

“These words.⁠ ⁠…” began Master Godolphin, drawing himself up very stiffly.

“Are a deal less than your deserts,” cut in the other, and he raised his voice to call⁠—“Nick.”

“You shall answer to them,” snapped his visitor.

“I am answering now,” was the stern answer. “To come here and prate to me of my dead father’s dissoluteness and of an ancient quarrel between him and yours, to bleat of my trumped-up course of piracy and my own ways of life as a just cause why I may not wed your sister whilst the real consideration in your mind, the real spur to your hostility is not more than the matter of some few paltry pounds a year that I hinder you from pocketing. A God’s name get you gone.”

Nick entered at that moment.

“You shall hear from me again, Sir Oliver,” said the other, white with anger. “You shall account to me for these words.”

“I do not fight with⁠ ⁠… with hucksters,” flashed Sir Oliver.

“D’ye dare call me that?”

“Indeed, ’tis to discredit an honourable class, I confess it. Nick, the door for Master Godolphin.”

II

Rosamund

Anon, after his visitor had departed, Sir Oliver grew calm again. Then being able in his calm to consider his position, he became angry anew at the very thought of the rage in which he had been, a rage which had so mastered him that he had erected additional obstacles to the already considerable ones that stood between Rosamund and himself. In full blast, his anger swung round and took Sir John Killigrew for its objective. He would settle with him at once. He would so, by Heaven’s light!

He bellowed for Nick and his boots.

“Where is Master Lionel?” he asked when the boots had been fetched.

“He be just ridden in, Sir Oliver.”

“Bid him hither.”

Promptly, in answer to that summons, came Sir Oliver’s half-brother⁠—a slender lad favouring his mother the dissolute Ralph Tressilian’s second wife. He was as unlike Sir Oliver in body as in soul. He was comely in a very gentle, almost womanish way; his complexion was fair and delicate, his hair golden, and his eyes of a deep blue. He had a very charming stripling grace⁠—for he was but in his twenty-first year⁠—and he dressed with all the care of a Court-gallant.

“Has that whelp Godolphin been to visit you?” he asked as he entered.

“Aye,” growled Sir Oliver. “He came to tell me some things and to hear some others in return.”

“Ha. I passed him just beyond the gates, and he was deaf to my greeting. ’Tis a most cursed insufferable pup.”

“Art a judge of men, Lal.” Sir Oliver stood up booted. “I am for Arwenack to exchange a compliment or two with Sir John.”

His tight-pressed lips and resolute air supplemented his words so well that Lionel clutched his arm.

“You’re not⁠ ⁠… you’re not⁠ ⁠… ?”

“I am.” And affectionately, as if to soothe the lad’s obvious alarm, he patted his brother’s shoulder. “Sir John,” he explained, “talks too much. ’Tis a fault that wants correcting. I go to teach him the virtue of silence.”

“There will be trouble, Oliver.”

“So there will⁠—for him. If a man must be saying of me that I am a pirate, a slave-dealer, a murderer, and Heaven knows what else, he must be ready for the consequences. But you are late, Lal. Where have you been?”

“I rode as far as Malpas.”

“As far as Malpas?” Sir Oliver’s eyes narrowed, as was the trick with him. “I hear it whispered what magnet draws you thither,” he said. “Be wary, boy. You go too much to Malpas.”

“How?” quoth Lionel a trifle coldly.

“I mean that you are your father’s son. Remember it, and strive not to follow in his ways lest they bring you to his own end. I have just been reminded of these predilections of his by good Master Peter. Go not over often to Malpas, I