"In other words, William, you are horridly sick."
"Your ladyship has a happy turn of phrase.
In fact, since we are discussing the matter I am taking the liberty to suggest, my lady, that you should take with you this little box of pills, which I have found invaluable in the past, and which may be of help to you should some unhappy sensation come upon you."
"How very kind of you, William.
Give them to me, and I will put them in my bundle.
I have a wager with your master that I shall not succumb. Do you think I shall win?"
"It depends upon what your ladyship is alluding to."
"That I shall not succumb to the motion of the ship, of course. What did you think I meant?"
"Forgive me, my lady. My mind, for the moment, had strayed to other things.
Yes, I think you will win that wager."
"It is the only wager we have, William."
"Indeed, my lady."
"You sound doubtful."
"When two people make a voyage, my lady, and one of them a man like my master, and the other a woman like my mistress, the situation strikes me as being pregnant with possibilities."
"William, you are very presumptuous."
"I am sorry, my lady."
"And - French in your ideas."
"You must blame my mother, my lady."
"You are forgetting that I have been married to Sir Harry for six years, and am the mother of two children, and that next month I shall be thirty."
"On the contrary, my lady, it was these three things that I was most remembering."
"Then I am inexpressibly shocked at you.
Open the door at once, and let me into the garden."
"Yes, my lady."
He pulled back the shutters, and drew aside the long heavy curtains.
Something fluttered against the window, seeking an outlet, and as William flung open the door a butterfly, that had become imprisoned in the folds of the curtains, winged its way into the air.
"Another fugitive seeking escape, my lady."
"Yes, William." She smiled at him an instant, and standing upon the threshold sniffed the cool morning air, and looking up saw the first pale streak of the day creep into the sky.
"Goodbye, William."
"Au revoir, my lady."
She went across the grass, clutching her bundle, her shawl over her head, and looking back once saw the grey outline of the house, solid, and safe, and sleeping, with William standing sentinel by the window.
Waving her hand to him in farewell she followed Pierre Blanc, with his merry eyes and his dark monkey face and his earrings, down through the woods to the pirate ship in the creek.
Somehow she had expected bustle and noise, the confusion of departure, but when they came alongside La Mouette there was the usual silence.
It was only when she had climbed the ladder to the deck and looked about her that she realised that the ship was ready for sea, the decks were clear, the men were standing at their appointed places.
One of the men came forward and bowed, bending his head low.
"Monsieur wishes you to go to the quarter-deck."
She climbed the ladder to the high poop-deck, and as she did so she heard the rattle of the chain in the hawser, the grind of the capstan, and the stamping of feet.
Pierre Blanc, the song-maker, began his chant, and the voices of the men, low and soft, rose in the air, so that she turned, leaning over the rail to watch them.
Their steady treading upon the deck, the creak of the capstan, and the monotony of their chant made a kind of poetry in the air, a lovely thing of rhythm, all seeming part of the fresh morning and part of the adventure.
Suddenly she heard an order called out behind her, clear and decisive, and for the first time she saw the Frenchman, standing beside the helmsman at the wheel, his face tense and alert, his hands behind his back.
This was a different being from the companion of the river who had sat beside her in the little boat and mended her line, and later built a wood fire on the quay and cooked the fish, his sleeves rolled above his elbows, his hair falling into his eyes.
She felt an intruder, a silly woman amongst a lot of men who had work to do, and without a word she went and stood at a distance, against the rail, where she could not bother him, and he continued with his orders, glancing aloft, at the sky, at the water, at the banks of the river.
Slowly the ship gathered way, and the wind of the morning, coming across the hills, filled the great sails.
She crept down the creek like a ghost upon the still water, now and again almost brushing the trees where the channel ran inshore, and all the while he stood beside the helmsman, giving the course, watching the curving banks of- the creek.
The wide parent river opened up before them, and now the wind came full and true from the west, sending a ripple on the surface, and as La Mouette met the strength of it she heeled slightly, her decks aslant, and a little whipping spray came over the bulwark.
The dawn was breaking in the east, and the sky had a dull haze about it and a glow that promised fine weather.
There was a salty tang in the air, a freshness that came from the open sea beyond the estuary, and as the ship entered the main channel of the river the sea-gulls rose in the air and followed them.
The men had ceased their chanting, and now stood, looking towards the sea, an air of expectancy about them, as though they were men who had idled and lazed too long and were suddenly thirsty, suddenly aflame.
Once again the spray rose from the top of a high-crested sea, as the ship crossed the bar at the mouth of the estuary, and Dona, smiling, tasted it on her lips, and looking up, saw that the Frenchman had left the helmsman and was standing beside her, and the spray must have caught him too, for there was salt upon his lips and his hair was wet.
"Do you like it?" he said, and she nodded, laughing up at him, so that he smiled an instant, looking towards the sea.
As he did so she was filled with a great triumph and a sudden ecstasy, for she knew then that he was hers, and she loved him, and that it was something she had known from the very beginning, from the first moment when she had walked into his cabin and found him sitting at the table drawing the heron.