“Spoken truly; nor would I make choice of one with muscles so inert from disuse were this to be an onset, where men give and take hard blows.  I ask you not upon the ship’s deck at all, my friend, nor shall I require your company one step farther than the roof of the great sugar warehouse of Bomanceaux et fils.  Still, it will require steady nerve to do even what little I require, and, if you doubt your courage, say so now, and I will seek among the slaves for stouter heart and readier hand.”

That my words touched his pride I could read instantly in his uplifted face.

“Nay, thou needest seek no further,” he announced briefly, his thin lips tightly pressed together.  “I will go, Monsieur.”  I knew instantly by the bold ring of the words that henceforward I might trust him to the death.

“I thought you would.  Now a question more, and then I must have food.  Can you prepare for my use one of your robes?”

“Easily, Monsieur; Father Cassati left one behind at the chapter-house when he went aboard ship, and you do not greatly differ in point of size.  But is it possible thou proposest to turn priest, and of our Order?”

“In outward vesture merely, and that not for long.  It would afford me greater liberty of movement on the ‘Santa Maria’ than my own garb, and may spare me some unpleasant questioning.  Yet, perchance, there may be danger of my overdoing the priestly character, as well as of overestimating the privileges granted the clergy on board.”

He shrugged his shoulders, nettled somewhat by my words and manner.

“I have indeed reason for gravely distrusting your naturalness in the wearing of a robe dedicated to religion,” he made answer.  “But as for the other matter, there can be little danger of your overstepping the mark.  Father Cassati is of a somewhat roistering disposition, over-fond of the bottle, in truth,—­although it giveth me pain to speak thus of one of my own Order,—­and I have been informed, moveth at his own will about the ship.  He is of the sort to be ’hail fellow, well met’ with those roistering Spaniards, who care little for God or man, as he possesseth few scruples of his own.”

“Bear I sufficient resemblance to pass in his stead?”

“You are not unlike as to height and build; as to face, you are far the better featured.  With the cowl up it might be reasonably safe in a dim light.”

“My beauty has always been my undoing,” I ventured, in awakened good humor.  “Nevertheless I shall be compelled to venture it this time; moreover, I am pleased to learn that things aboard are as you describe, for such a state of affairs may greatly serve our purpose.”

I turned away from him to recross the room and murmur a few words of brighter hope into the ear of Eloise, where she sat in white-faced silence amid the deeper shadows of the portiere.

CHAPTER V