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cross staff which I also learned later was an arbalist.
    I noticed these things vaguely while I looked around for Honey. When I saw that she was not there I felt twinges of alarm which were half excited anticipation.
    “Where is my sister?” I demanded.
    He laughed; he had shut the door and was leaning against it.
    “In her garden perhaps. In her stillroom … occupying herself with those tasks which are the joy and duty of every housewife.”
    “In her garden! But I was led to believe…”
    He laughed. “Did I not tell you that you would come aboard my ship within the week?”
    “But I understood my sister was here.”
    “You did not really believe that, did you?”
    “But…”
    “Oh, come, you wanted to accept my invitation, did you not? And I wanted you to. So why should the means of bringing about this happy conclusion worry us?”
    “I am not worried,” I said.
    “You should be if you are really concerned with what you pretend to be.”
    “I think you’ve gone mad.”
    “My sanity is something I shall never allow to desert me.”
    I said: “I wish to go.”
    “But I wish you to stay. I am the Captain of this ship. Here everyone obeys my orders.”
    “Those poor creatures who serve you may. They, poor souls, are at your mercy.”
    “And you think you are not?”
    “I have had enough of this folly.”
    “And I could never have enough.” He came toward me and put his arms about me, pinioning mine so that I was caught in a firm grip.
    “Captain Pennlyon, there is no doubt that you are mad. Do you realize that my family will never forgive this insult?”
    He laughed. I noticed that his eyes were tilted slightly at the corners and that his eyebrows followed the upward tilt; this gave him an expression that was puckish and satanic at the same time. I tried to prize myself free.
    “Let me go,” I cried and tried to kick his shins; but he held me in such a way that it was impossible for me to do so. I thought, he has held many women thus and I pictured his raiding far-off hamlets and villages and the manner in which he and his men would treat the women they captured.
    “You can’t escape,” he mocked, “so it’s no use trying. You are at my mercy.”
    “Well, what do you want of me?”
    “Surely you know that.”
    “If I am right in my assumption…”
    “Which I am sure you are…”
    “I will tell you that I consider your manners gross; I find you boorish, quite unlike—”
    “The fancy gentlemen whom it has been your ill fortune to meet in the past. Well, now, my girl, you have met a man who finds you to his liking and in spite of his lack of manners you find him irresistible.”
    Then he took his arms from about me and caught my head; he pulled it back and his mouth was on mine … warm, revolting, I told myself firmly. I tried to protest, but it was useless. I could not escape from this fierce embrace.
    When he at last released me I was shaking—with fury, I again reminded myself.
    I said: “How dare you behave in such a way … I have never…”
    “Of course you have never been kissed like that before. But don’t fret. It will not be the last time.”
    I was beginning to be alarmed. I was on his ship alone. I had been tricked. There were men on board, but they were his slaves.
    He guessed my thoughts.
    “Exciting, eh? You are at my mercy. You can’t get away unless it is my wish that you should.”
    I could only repeat: “You would not dare to touch me.”
    “Now that I know that your eagerness matches my own … but I, being honest, make no secret of my desires while you, being deceitful, hide yours, feigning reluctance.”
    “I never heard such nonsense! You are a loathsome, ill-mannered pirate and I hate you.”
    “You protest too strongly,” he said.
    “You will be hanged for this. My family…”
    “Oh, yes,” he said, “you are a girl of good family. This is a matter which we have taken into consideration.”
    “Who has taken it into consideration?”
    “My