Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/177

 feathery mist of rainbows. The sunlight glinted on polished wood and brasswork and at the stern caught in the cross of St. George where the flag of England flapped in the breeze. The flag of England sheltering John Rizzio! She scanned the horizon anxiously. Perhaps an English cruiser or destroyer might come to whom she might be able to tell the real character of the owner of the vessel. But there was no vessel in sight. A sailor passed her and touched his cap. The deference encouraged her. It reminded her that this was the same deck upon which she had stood when John Rizzio was suing for her hand, an honorable host when she had been an honored guest. A loud crackling came to her ears from the wireless room. He was there, already in communication with his employers in Germany. Even now, with Cyril’s words still ringing in her ears, she found it difficult to believe that John Rizzio was England’s enemy; and the price of his treachery a picture, “The Descent from the Cross”! What a mockery that a man who would stoop to such dishonor could make its price a picture which typified the conquest of sublime virtue even over death!

The wind was searching and the maid brought a heavy coat with brass buttons from below and put it on her with the word that Mr. Rizzio had sent it and would come to her in a few moments. She sat in a deckchair in the lee of the deckhouse, her lips firmly compressed, trying to think what his ulterior purpose might be, planning a defense which might make her invulnerable, an attack which might search his intentions and discover the true relation that was to exist between them.

He came toward her from forward, muffled in a