What d'y' say--shall I claim that
for my own, Guy?"
"You do, sir, and it's not Homer, nor Dante, nor Keats who will rise up
to accuse you of plagiarism."
"Bah! You would no more allow me the merit of a poetic vein than--"
"Poetry, sir?"
"Poetry--why not?" and suddenly bending sidewise and forward, he essayed
to obtain a fuller view of my face. And it is true that I was thinking
of anything but poetry.
His face darkened as he gazed. "A hundred estates and plantations were
nothing to me against--" he burst out passionately, but no further than
that. He checked himself and went inside, and with no good-night going.
In the morning he was gone. I waited--one, two, three days, and then I
went also--to Savannah, where I saw the _Bess_, but so altered that it
needed a lifetime's intimacy to hail her in the stream. Her spars had
been sent down and her name was now the _Triton_, and to her bow and
stern was clamped the false work which left her with no more outward
grace than any clumsy coaster; and by these signs I knew that Mr.
Villard of Villard Manor would once more disappear and that Captain
Blaise would soon again be sailing the _Dancing Bess_ overseas.
Captain Blaise had not yet come aboard; but whatever ship he sailed the
full run of that ship was mine, and I went into his cabin to wait for
him.
It was after dark when he came over the side.
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