Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/496

 felt the chair jerk and sway to the unaccustomed action of its maritime bearers. "Droll enough to be thus carried through the streets of London by the British navy! and droller than all, that I should have met Smoke-Jack at a time like the present. This accident may prove extremely useful in the end. Doubtless, he is still devoted to his old captain. Everybody seems devoted to that man. Can I wonder at my little Cerise? And Sir George may be none the worse of a faithful follower in days like these. I will ask him, at any rate, and it is not often when I ask anything that I am refused!"

So when the chair halted at last before Madame de Montmirail's door, she dismissed the boatswain's mate delighted, with many kind words and a couple of broad pieces, while Smoke-Jack, no less delighted, found himself ushered into the sitting-room upstairs, even before he had time to look round and take his bearings.

The Marquise prided herself on knowledge of mankind, and offered him refreshment on the spot.

"Will you have grog?" she said. "It is bad for you sailors to talk with the mouth dry."

Smoke-Jack, again, prided himself on his manners, and declined strenuously. Neither would he be prevailed upon to sit down, but balanced his person on either leg alternately, holding his hat with both hands before the pit of his stomach.

"Smoke-Jack," said the Marquise, "I know you of old; brave, discreet, and trustworthy. I am bound on a journey in which there is some little danger, and much necessity for caution; have you the time and the inclination to accompany me?"

His impulse was to follow her to the end of the world, but he mistrusted these sirens precisely because it was always his impulse so to follow them.

"Is it for a spell, marm?" he asked; "or for a long cruise? If I might make so free, marm, I'd like to be told the name of the skipper and the tonnage of the craft!"

"I start in an hour for the north," she continued, neither understanding nor heeding his proviso. "I am going into the neighbourhood of your old captain, Sir George Hamilton."