Now as I stood thus, staring out to sea, the moon sank and with it my heart also, for as the dark came about me so came darkness within me and sudden sorrow with great fear of the future; wherefore, beholding the loom of the ship where lights twinkled, I would gladly have seen her a shattered wreck, and hearing the hoarse laughter and voices of these lawless fellows waking the echoes of Deliverance Beach, I hated them one and all, and to my fear and sorrow anger was added. But now cometh my dear lady to stand beside me, to steal her hand into mine, and never a word betwixt us for a while. At last: "So endeth our solitude, Martin!"
"Aye!"
"Our deliverance is come!" says she and then, very softly, "Doth not this rejoice you?" Here answer found I none, since now at last I knew this the very thing I had come most to dread. So was silence again save for these hoarse unlovely voices where they launched and boarded the longboat. "Master Adam would have me go on board, Martin, but 'tis near dawn so will I bide with you to welcome this new day."
"I'm glad you stayed, Damaris." At this I felt her clasp tighten on my fingers, and so she brings me to a rock hard by and, sinking on the warm sand, would have me sit by her; thus, side by side, we watched the boat pull away to the ship, and presently all about us was hushed and still save for the never-ceasing murmur of the surge.
"Martin," says she in a while, "with this new day beginneth for us a new life! In a few short hours we sail for England."
"England! Aye, to be sure!" says I, mighty doleful, but, conscious of her regard, strove to look happy yet made such a botch of it that, getting to her knees, she takes my hang-dog face betwixt her two hands.
"O but you are glad?" she questions, a little breathlessly, "Glad to come with me to England--to leave this wilderness?"
"Aye!" I nodded, well-nigh choking on the word.
"Dear Martin, look at me!" she commanded, "Now speak me plain. Whence is your grief?"
"O, my lady," quoth I, "'tis the knowledge of my unworthiness, my unloveliness, my rude and graceless ways; England is no place for like of me. I am well enough here in the wild--to work for you, fight for you an' need be, but how may I compare with your fine gallants and courtly gentlemen?"
Now at this she clasps me all sudden in her arms and setting soft cheek to mine falls a-chiding me, yet kissing me full oft, calling me "silly," "dear," "foolish," and "beloved."