"You sent for me, my lord?" Captain Salt's voice was silvery in tone
and pleasant to hear as running water.
"I did," said the Earl, pressing his seal upon the letter and sitting
down to direct it. "You have the lists?"
The other drew a bundle of papers from his breastpocket, and
advancing, laid them upon the table. The Earl put the letter aside,
opened the bundle and ran his eye over its contents.
"You are sure of all these men?"
"Quite."
"You seem to have enough. We mustn't overdo this, you understand?
It wouldn't do for the affair to--succeed."
Captain Salt smiled.
"If they carry off a vessel or two," the Earl went on, "it's no great
loss, and it will give Saint Germains the agreeable notion that
something is about to happen. They've been plaguing me again.
This time it's an urgent letter in my royal master's own hand.
He calls on me to bring over the whole army in the very first
action--the born fool! Can he really believe I love him so dearly?
Has he really persuaded himself that I've forgotten--?"
He checked himself; but for the first time that evening his face was
suffused with a hot flush. For, in fact, he was thinking of his
sister, Arabella Churchill; and John Churchill, though he had made no
scruple to profit by his sister's shame, had never forgiven it.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114