"We are bound for Fowey Haven," he told her.

The night was dark, and very still. What breeze there was came from the north, but here, under the lee of the headland, there was none of it. Only a sudden whistle in the rigging now and again and a ripple across the face of the black water told that a mile or two off-shore the breeze still held. La Mouette lay at anchor on the fringe of a little bay, and close at hand - so close that you could toss a pebble onto the rocks - rose the great cliffs, shadowy and indistinct in the darkness. The ship had come stealthily to her appointed place, no voices were raised, no commands given as she bore up into the wind to drop anchor, and the chain that dropped through the padded hawser gave a hollow muffled sound. For a moment or so the colony of gulls, nesting in hundreds in the cliffs above, became restive and disturbed, and their uneasy cries echoed against the cliff face and travelled across the water, and then, because there was no further movement, they settled again, and the silence was unbroken. Dona stood against the rail on the poop-deck watching the headland, and it seemed to her that there was something eerie in the stillness, something strange, as though they had come unwittingly to a land asleep, whose dwellers lay under a spell, and these gulls that had risen at their approach were sentinels, placed there to give warning. She remembered then, that this country and these cliffs which were another part of her own coast, must be for her, this night at any rate, a hostile place. She had come to enemy territory, and the townsfolk of Fowey Haven, who at this moment were sleeping in their beds, were alien too.

The crew of La Mouette were gathered in the waist of the ship, she could see them standing shoulder to shoulder, motionless and silent, and for the first time since she had started on the adventure she was aware of a tiny prick of misgiving, a feminine chill of fear. She was Dona St. Columb, wife of an English landowner and baronet, and because of impulsive madness she had thrown in her lot with a pack of Bretons, of whom she knew nothing but that they were pirates and outlaws, unscrupulous and dangerous, led by a man who had never told her anything of himself, whom she loved ridiculously without rhyme or reason, a thing which - if she stayed to consider it in cold blood - would make her hot with shame. It might be that the plan would fail, that he and his men would be captured, and she with them, and the whole band of them would be brought ignominiously to justice, and then it would not be long before her identity would be established, Harry brought hotfoot from London. She could see in a flash the whole story blazed over the country, the horror and the scandal it would cause. A sordid tarnished air would cling upon it, there would be smutty laughter in London amongst Harry's friends, and Harry himself would probably blow his brains out, and the children be orphaned, forbidden to speak her name, their mother who had run away after a French pirate like a kitchen-maid after a groom. The thoughts chased themselves round her head, as she gazed down at the silent crew of La Mouette, seeing, in her mind, her comfortable bed at Navron, the peaceful garden, the safety and normality of life with the children. And then, looking up, she saw that the Frenchman was standing beside her, and she wondered how much he could read in her face.

"Come below," he said quietly, and she followed him, feeling subdued suddenly like a pupil who was to receive chastisement from his master, and she wondered how she would answer him should he chide her for her fear. It was dark in the cabin, two candles gave a feeble glow, and he sat down on the edge of the table considering her, while she stood in front of him, her hands behind her back.

"You have remembered that you are Dona St. Columb," he said.

"Yes," she answered.

"And you have been wishing, up there on the deck, that you were safe home again, and had never set eyes on La Mouette."

There was no reply to this, the first part of his sentence might be true, but the last could never be. There was silence between them for a moment, and she wondered if all women, when in love, were torn between two impulses, a longing to throw modesty and reserve to the winds and confess everything, and an equal determination to conceal the love forever, to be cool, aloof, utterly detached, to die rather than admit a thing so personal, so intimate.

She wished she were someone else, whistling carelessly, hands stuck into breeches pockets, discussing with the captain of the ship the schemes and possibilities of the coming night, or that he was different, another personality, someone for whom she felt no concern, instead of being the one man in the world she loved and wanted.

And there was a flame of anger in her suddenly, that she, who had laughed at love and scorned the sentimental, should be brought, in so few weeks, to such shaming degradation, to such despicable weakness. He got up from the table and opened the locker in the bulkhead, and brought out a bottle and two glasses.

"It is always unwise," he said, "to set forth upon an adventure with a cold heart and an empty stomach, that is, if one is untrained to adventure." He poured the wine into a glass, leaving the other empty, and gave the full one to her.'

"I shall drink afterwards," he said, "when we return."

She noticed, for the first time, that there was a tray on the sideboard by the door, covered with a napkin, and he went now and brought this to the table. There was cold meat, and bread upon it, and a slice of cheese. "This is for you," he said, "eat it quickly, for time is getting short." He turned his back on her, busying himself with a chart on the side table, and she began to eat and drink, despising herself already for the reluctance that had come upon her on the deck, and when she had eaten some of the meat, and cut herself a slice of bread and cheese, and had finished the glass of wine he had poured for her, she felt that the doubts and fears would not return, they had been, after all, the outcome of chilled feet and an empty stomach, and he had realised this from the beginning, understanding her mood in his strange incalculable way.

She pushed back her chair, and he turned, hearing the sound, and he was smiling at her, and she laughed at him in return, flushing guiltily, like a spoilt child.

"That is better, is it not?" he said.

"Yes," she answered, "how did you know?"

"Because the master of a ship makes it his business to know these things," he said, "and a cabin-boy must be broken in to piracy rather more gently than the rest of my crew. And now to business." He picked up the chart he had been studying and she saw that it was a plan of Fowey Haven, and he placed it before her on the table.

"The main anchorage is there, in deep water, opposite the town," he said, putting his finger on the plan, "and Rashleigh's vessel will be lying about here, where his vessels always lie, moored to a buoy at the entrance of this creek."

There was a cross in red upon the plan to indicate the buoy.

"I am leaving part of the crew on board La Mouette," he said, "and if you wish to, you know, you can stay here with them."

"No," she said, "a quarter of an hour ago I should have said yes, but not now, not any more."

"Are you certain about that?"

"I have never been more certain about anything in my life."

He looked down at her in the flickering candle-light, and she felt gay suddenly, and absurdly light-hearted, as though nothing mattered, nothing at all, and even if they were caught and brought to justice and both hanged from the tallest tree in Godolphin's park, it would be worth it, for first there would be this adventure they would have together.