One must not write down the horrible exclamations that issued from Bufton's lips as he heard these words--the execrations on the woman who had entrapped and ruined him. Yet even when he was calmer, he continued wildly--
"'Thinks kindly of me!' 'Would pass her life by my side!' Ay! she shall think kindly of me--in the colonies. In the fields, where she shall toil till her heart bursts, till she drops dead. Lewis! Lewis! Can it be done? Can it? Can it? And you have power here; have men at your call. I will pay. I have two hundred guineas. Help me, and we will ensnare them both. Oh! what a vengeance on that wanton and on Barry! Help me, Lewis!"
"I will help you," the other said; "vengeance _is_ sweet."
Ariadne had been happy for five days beyond the time she had expected to be--five days beyond the one when her husband selected those men out of Lewis Granger's house to go forth and serve the King. For Geoffrey, still looking about in likely quarters, while sending also a press-gang ashore under the command of an old grey-haired lieutenant who had never found promotion--a man old enough to be Geoffrey's father--and still another gang under the command of his master-at-arms, had been enabled to thus long delay his departure. But now--now--the time had come to part; he had the full complement of men their Lordships had directed him to procure, and from their Lordships also had come a message by an Admiralty tender, bidding him sail for the fleets at once.
Wherefore poor Ariadne, tearful and woebegone, was now superintending the preparations necessary for quitting the _Mignonne_, while Geoffrey was intent on comforting her in every way in his power.
"Yet, cheer up, dear heart," he said again and again to her. "Remember, 'tis not for long at present. Once I have delivered these men into the ships requiring them (and some are no farther off than the Nore), then back I come to seek for more. We shall not fight Conflans yet; he advances not in spite of all his threats to invade us. So, heart up, mine own; in a week the _Mignonne_ will be anchored here once more, and thou on board with thy fond husband."
"But a week, Geoff--a week! Alas! to me it seems an eternity. And then to think of what is to follow. And they say that that corsair, Thurot, is at the mouth of the river. If that should be so!"