Page:George Gibbs--Love of Monsieur.djvu/254

 than the first shook the vessel like a hundred thunderbolts. Cornbury, in blissful ignorance of the battle raging below, had opened the battle above with the entire starboard broadside.

Mistress Barbara stammered, faltered, and fell back towards the table, trembling with fear. She put her hands to her ears as though to blot out the sounds. And then, in a supplicating dependence which set at naught all the hot words that had poured from her lips, she leaned forward listlessly upon the table.

“Take me,” she said, brokenly. “Take me. I am all humility. I will go, monsieur.”

A soft light she had seen there before crept into the eyes of Bras-de-Fer. As though unconscious, she saw his extended arms thrust forward to her support and heard as from a distance the resonant voice, the notes of which, with a strange, sweet insistence, sang among her emotions until, like lute strings, they sang and trembled in return. And the chord which they awoke to melody rang through every fiber of her being with a new-pulsing joy, a splendid delight, 242