"If you utter another word before we are around yonder headland, I will have De Noyan hoist you overboard." I saw him glance askance at the unconscious Chevalier as if mentally calculating his ability to perform the feat.

Then his glinting gray eyes swept the sodden shore as though vaguely wondering what it was we fled from in such unseemly haste.

Nor did I long withdraw my own anxious gaze from that north bank, until we rounded the bend in the stream, and were safely removed from view of any one below.

I was able to mark no sign of life along the ridge, my faith reviving that the Spanish sailors yet slept soundly, while as to their irate commander, I had trussed him with a thoroughness which left me confident.

Feeling reassured I finally yielded to Eloise's entreaties, laying bare my breast and permitting Madame to wash away the clotted blood and apply such bandages as might easily be procured.