Читать «Cup of Gold (Золотая чаша)» онлайн - страница 119

"Well, I can easily find out about the pirates, and as to your affection-you love me as long as I have my eye on you, and no longer. I know you thoroughly. But I am glad they are hanged. Lord Vaughn says they are a positive danger even to ourselves. He says they may stop fighting Spain at any moment and start on us. He says they are like vicious dogs, to be exterminated as soon as possible. I feel a little safer every time one of them is out of the way."

"But, my dear, Lord Vaughn knows nothing about buccaneers, while I-"

"Henry, why do you keep me here with your talking, when you know I have a thousand things to attend to. You think, because you have all the time in the world, that I can afford to help you idle. Now do see to the coachman, because I should be terribly embarrassed if he were not fit. His livery will not suit Jacob by any pinching. Did I tell you he is drunk? Get him sober for tonight if you must drown him to do it. Now hurry along. I won't feel right until I know he can sit up straight." She turned to reenter the house, then came back and kissed him on the cheek.

"It's really a nice pearl. Thank you, dear," she said. "Of course, I am going to have Monsieur Banzet value it. After what Lord Vaughn said, I have very little faith in pirates. They might have been trying to bribe you with paste, and you would never know the difference."

Sir Henry walked toward the stables. Now, as on other occasions, he was gently moved by uneasiness.

Now and then there came a vagrant feeling that, in spite of all Elizabeth 's declamation to the effect that she knew him thoroughly, perhaps she really did. It was disquieting.

Sir Henry Morgan lay in an enormous bed; a bed so wide that his body, under the coverlid, seemed a snow-covered mountain range dividing two great plains. From the walls about the room the shiny eyes of his ancestors regarded him. On their faces were smirks which said, "Ah, yes! A knight, to be sure-but we know how you bought your knighthood." The air in the room was heavy and thick and hot.

So always the air seems in a room where a man is about to die.

Sir Henry was staring at the ceiling. For an hour he had been puzzled with this mysterious ceiling.

Nothing supported it in the middle. Why did it not fall? It was late. Every one about him was silent, they went sneaking about pretending to be ghosts, he thought. They were trying to convince him that he was dead already. He closed his eyes. He was too tired or too indifferent to keep them open. He heard the doctor come in, and felt him reading the pulse. Then the big confident voice boomed: "I am sorry, Lady Morgan. There is nothing to do now. I do not even know what is the matter with him.