"I ha' answered you more than once already. Still, I tell you once
again, since ye are slow to understand it, that I was paid a matter of
two hundred pound by your brother, Master Lionel Tressilian, to carry
you off to Barbary and there sell you for a slave. Is that plain to
you?"
"As plain as it is false. You lie, you dog!"
"Softly, softly!" quoth Master Leigh, good-humouredly.
"I say you lie!"
Master Leigh considered him a moment. "Sets the wind so!" said he at
length, and without another word he rose and went to a sea-chest ranged
against the wooden wall of the cabin. He opened it and took thence a
leather bag. From this he produced a handful of jewels. He thrust them
under Sir Oliver's nose. "Haply," said he, "ye'll be acquainted with
some of them. They was given me to make up the sum since your brother
had not the whole two hundred pound in coin. Take a look at them."
Sir Oliver recognized a ring and a long pear-shaped pearl earring that
had been his brother's; he recognized a medallion that he himself had
given Lionel two years ago; and so, one by one, he recognized every
trinket placed before him.
His head drooped to his breast, and he sat thus awhile like a man
stunned. "My God!" he groaned miserably, at last. "Who, then, is left
to me! Lionel too! Lionel!" A sob shook the great frame. Two tears
slowly trickled down that haggard face and were lost in the stubble of
beard upon his chin.
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