At length, the Portugals having it their own way, we parted:  Mr. Saint Aubyn riding off to lodge for the night with Mr. Godolphin, who took charge of the three wounded men; while we carried the Lady Alicia off to Pengersick (whither the prisoner Gil Perez had been marched on ahead), she riding pillion behind my Master, and the rest of us at a seemly distance.

On reaching home I had first to busy myself with orders for the victuals to be sent down to the foreigners at the Cove, and afterwards in snatching my supper in the great hall, where already I saw my Master and the strange lady making good cheer together at the high table.  He had bidden the housekeeper fetch out some robes that had been his mother’s, and in these antique fittings the lady looked not awkwardly (as you might suppose), but rather like some player in a masque.  I know not how ’twas:  but whereas (saving my respect) I had always been to my dear Master as a brother, close to his heart and thoughts, her coming did at once remove him to a distance from me, so that I looked on the pair as if the dais were part of some other world than this, and they, pledging each other up there and murmuring in foreign tongues and playing with glances, as two creatures moving through a play or pisky tale without care or burden of living, and yet in the end to be pitied.

My fast broken, I bethought me of our prisoner; and catching up some meats and a flask of wine, hurried to the strong room where he lay.  But I found him stretched on his pallet, and turning in a kind of fever:  so returned and fetched a cooling draught in place of the victuals, and without questioning made him drink it.  He thanked me amid some rambling, light-headed talk—­the most of it too quickly poured out for me to catch; but by-and-by grew easier and drowsy.  I left him to sleep, putting off questions for the morning.

But early on the morrow—­between five and six o’clock—­came Will Hendra, a cowkeeper, into our courtyard with a strange tale; one that disquieted if it did not altogether astonish me.  The tale—­as told before my Master, whom I aroused to hear it—­ran thus:  that between midnight and one in the morning the Portugals in the Cove had been set upon and beaten from the spoils by a number of men with pikes (no doubt belonging to Saint Aubyn or Godolphin, or both), and forced to flee to the cliffs.  But (here came in the wonder) the assailants, having mastered the field, fell on the casks, chests, and packages, only to find them utterly empty or filled with weed and gravel!  Of freight—­so Will Hendra had it from one of Godolphin’s own men, who were now searching the cliffs and caverns—­not twelve-pennyworth remained on the beach.  The Portugals must have hidden or made away with it all.  He added that their captain had been found at the foot of the cliffs with his head battered in; but whether by a fall or a blow taken in the affray, there was no telling.

My Master let saddle at once and rode away for the Cove without breaking his fast.  And I went about my customary duties until full daybreak, when I paid a visit to the strong room, to see how the prisoner had slept.