He saw four men in her, crouched among a cargo heaped high under tarpaulins. He saw the Rowse boys, two lanky lads with their mouths open. He saw Penrose, old and grey, lift his hands at once and shake his head. And he saw Nance, standing in the stern sheets with his twisted ear and his white face, and something in his hand that caught the lantern light, and his mouth, which was working fast and wild—
*—first man that lays a hand on this boat, I'll—Rowse, get the sail on her—I'm not going to Exeter for him, I'm not—*
"He has a pistol," Jory said. He did not know how loud it came out; he never did. "Mr. Madoc, the big man in the stern. He means it. He's frightened."
The galley men faltered. Two had cutlasses half drawn. Madoc's hand went up again, and the oars hung dripping, and the two boats drifted together on the swell, their gunwales almost touching, in a silence Jory could feel even if he could not hear it.
And then the lantern beside Madoc moved.
Lady Ormerod had taken it from its hook. She stood up in the rocking galley—Jory saw Madoc grab at her elbow, and miss—and she held the lantern up beside her own face, and with her other hand she put back her hood, so that the light fell full on her: the pale face, the dark hair coming down out of its pins in the wind, the grey eyes looking straight across the black water at Nance and his pistol.
She was not looking at Jory. But she spoke slowly anyway, and clearly, as though she had got into the habit of it, and he read every word.
*Mr. Nance. You know who I am. You have been paid with my money since March. I am telling you that whatever Captain Calloway has promised you, he cannot keep it, and whatever he has threatened you with, he cannot do it. If you fire that pistol you will hang. If you put it down, I will stand up in court and say that you put it down.* She did not raise the lantern any higher. She did not need to. *Enough, now. Enough.*
For a long moment nothing moved but the boats on the swell.
Then Nance's arm came down, slowly, as if it were very heavy; and old Penrose reached up and took the pistol out of his hand and dropped it over the side, where it went down without a sound into the black water.
*