“Carlyle, hey!” he exclaimed sneeringly.  “A familiar sound that name in my ears.  One of the brood out of Bucclough?”

“A cadet of that line,” I managed to admit, wonderingly.  “You know of them?”

“Quite as much as I care to,” his tone ugly and insulting.  Then an idea suddenly occurred to his mind.  “Saint Guise, but that would even up the score nicely.  You are, as I understand it, sent to Virginia for sale?”

“Yes.”

“For how long a term?”

“The sentence was twenty years.”

“Hela! and you go to the highest bidder.  I’ll do it, fellow!  To actually own a Carlyle of Bucclough will be a sweet revenge.”

“You mean,” I asked, dimly grasping his purpose, “that you propose buying me when we reach shore?”

“Why not?  A most excellent plan; and I owe it all to a brat I met in London.  Egad! it will be some joke to tell when next I visit England.  ’Twill count for more than were I to tweak the Duke’s nose.”

I stopped his laughter, smiling myself grimly in the darkness.

“A very noble plan for revenge,” I admitted, enjoying the swift check-mating of his game.  “And one which I am not likely to forget.  Unfortunately you come too late.  It happens, Senor, that I am already safely indentured to Roger Fairfax.”

“To Fairfax?  She told you that?”

“Who told me can make no difference.  At least I am out of your hands.”

I turned away, but he called angrily after me: 

“Do not feel so sure of that, Carlyle!  I am in the game yet.”

I made no answer, already despising the fellow so thoroughly as to ignore his threat.  He still stood there, a mere shadow, as I disappeared down the ladder, and I could imagine the expression on his face.

CHAPTER IV

THE SHORES OF VIRGINIA

I rested quietly in my berth for a long time, staring blankly up at the dark deck above, unable to sleep, and endeavoring to figure out the true meaning of all these occurrences.  It began to rain, torrents sweeping the planks overhead, while vivid flashes of lightning illumined the open hatch, before it could be hastily closed, revealing the squalidness of the interior in which we were quartered.  Then someone, growling and stumbling through the darkness, lit a slush lantern, dangling from a blackened beam, its faint flicker barely discernible.  The hole became foul and sickening, men tossing and groaning in their uneasy sleep, or prowling about seeking some measure of comfort.  There was no severe wind accompanying the storm, and the flurry of rain soon swept by, leaving an ugly swell behind, but enabling the guard to again uplift the hatches.