The Sea-Hawk | Page 9

for these words."
"I do not fight with...with hucksters," flashed Sir Oliver.

"D'ye dare call me that?"
"Indeed, 'tis to discredit an honourable class, I confess it. Nick, the door
for Master Godolphin."

CHAPTER II
ROSAMUND
Anon, after his visitor had departed, Sir Oliver grew calm again. Then
being able in his calm to consider his position, he became angry anew
at the very thought of the rage in which he had been, a rage which had
so mastered him that he had erected additional obstacles to the already
considerable ones that stood between Rosamund and himself. In full
blast, his anger swung round and took Sir John Killigrew for its
objective. He would settle with him at once. He would so, by Heaven's
light!
He bellowed for Nick and his boots.
"Where is Master Lionel? he asked when the boots had been fetched.
"He be just ridden in, Sir Oliver."
"Bid him hither."
Promptly, in answer to that summons, came Sir Oliver's half-brother--a
slender lad favouring his mother the dissolute Ralph Tressilian's second
wife. He was as unlike Sir Oliver in body as in soul. He was comely in
a very gentle, almost womanish way; his complexion was fair and
delicate, his hair golden, and his eyes of a deep blue. He had a very
charming stripling grace--for he was but in his twenty-first year-- and
he dressed with all the care of a Court-gallant.
"Has that whelp Godolphin been to visit you?" he asked as he entered.

"Aye," growled Sir Oliver. "He came to tell me some things and to hear
some others in return."
"Ha. I passed him just beyond the gates, and he was deaf to my greeting.
'Tis a most cursed insufferable pup."
"Art a judge of men, Lal." Sir Oliver stood up booted. "I am for
Arwenack to exchange a compliment or two with Sir John."
His tight-pressed lips and resolute air supplemented his words so well
that Lionel clutched his arm.
"You're not...you're not ...?"
"I am." And affectionately, as if to soothe the lad's obvious alarm, he
patted his brother's shoulder. "Sir John," he explained, "talks too much.
'Tis a fault that wants correcting. I go to teach him the virtue of
silence."
"There will be trouble, Oliver."
"So there will--for him. If a man must be saying of me that I am a
pirate, a slave-dealer, a murderer, and Heaven knows what else, he
must be ready for the consequences. But you are late, Lal. Where have
you been?"
"I rode as far as Malpas."
"As far as Malpas?" Sir Oliver's eyes narrowed, as was the trick with
him. "I hear it whispered what magnet draws you thither," he said. "Be
wary, boy. You go too much to Malpas."
"How?" quoth Lionel a trifle coldly.
"I mean that you are your father's son. Remember it, and strive not to
follow in his ways lest they bring you to his own end. I have just been
reminded of these predilections of his by good Master Peter. Go not
over often to Malpas, I say. No more." But the arm which he flung
about his younger brother's shoulders and the warmth of his embrace

made resentment of his warning quite impossible.
When he was gone, Lionel sat him down to dine, with Nick to wait on
him. He ate but little, and never addressed the old servant in the course
of that brief repast. He was very pensive. In thought he followed his
brother on that avenging visit of his to Arwenack. Killigrew was no
babe, but man of his hands, a soldier and a seaman. If any harm should
come to Oliver...He trembled at the thought; and then almost despite
him his mind ran on to calculate the consequences to himself. His
fortune would be in a very different case, he refected. In a sort of horror,
he sought to put so detestable a reflection from his mind; but it returned
insistently. It would not be denied. It forced him to a consideration of
his own circumstances.
All that he had he owed to his brother's bounty. That dissolute father of
theirs had died as such men commonly die, leaving behind him heavily
encumbered estates and many debts; the very house of Penarrow was
mortgaged, and the moneys raised on it had been drunk, or gambled, or
spent on one or another of Ralph Tressilian's many lights o' love. Then
Oliver had sold some little property near Helston, inherited from his
mother; he had sunk the money into a venture upon the Spanish Main.
He had fitted out and manned a ship, and had sailed with Hawkins upon
one of those ventures, which Sir John Killigrew was perfectly entitled
to account pirate raids. He had returned with enough plunder in specie
and gems to