to leave my new quarters, to which he had walked beside me, glanced at the men who waited for him without, — Jeremy had not yet been brought from the hold, — and returned to my side to say, in a low voice, but with emphasis: “Captain Percy has been a long time without news from home, — from England. What would he most desire to hear?”

“Of the welfare of his Grace of Buckingham,” I replied.

He smiled. “His Grace is as well as heart could desire, and as powerful. The Queen’s dog now tuggeth the sow by the ears this way or that, as it pleaseth him. Since we are not to hang you as a pirate, Captain Percy, I incline to think your affairs in better posture than when you left Virginia.”

“I think so too, sir,”