So whiles I ate, Adam, sitting near, told me much of his doings since he left me solitary on Bartlemy's Island, but of my lady Joan Brandon he spoke no word.
"'Tis but three short years since we parted, shipmate, three short years--"
"Three long, empty years!" said I bitterly.
"Aye, truth!" quoth he. "You had a mind to nought but vengeance, which is an empty thing, as belike you'll allow, Martin, you being now three long, empty years the wiser?"
Here, what with the hot broth and my hotter anger, I came nigh to choking, whereupon he rose and, seeing the bowl empty, took it from me and thereafter set another pillow to my back, the while I reviled him impotently.
"There, there, Martin!" said he, patting my shoulder as I had been a petulant child. "Never miscall Adam that is your friend, for if you have wasted yourself in a vanity, so have I, for here you see me full of honours, Martin, a justice, a member o' Parliament, a power at Court with great lords eager for my friendship and great ladies eager to wed me. Yet here am I safe at sea and fighting rogues as often as I may, for great riches is a plague that tainteth love and friendship alike--vanitas vanitatum, omnium vanitas!"
"Yet your three years have been turned to better account than mine!" said I, grown suddenly humble.
"In the matter of houses and land, Martin?"
"Aye!" I nodded. "For my three years I've nought to show but scars and rags."
"Not so, Martin, for your fortune marched with mine. Lord love you, I never bought stick or stone or acre of land but I bought one for you, comrade, share and share, shipmate. So, if I am a man o' great possessions, so are you, Martin; there be lands and houses in old England waiting their master as you sit there." Now at this I lay silent awhile, but at last I reached out a fumbling hand, the which he took and wrung in his vital clasp.
"God help me, Adam!" said I. "What have these years made of me?"
"That same scowling, unlovely, honest-hearted self-deluder that is my sworn comrade and blood-brother and that I do love heartily for his own sake and the sake of my lady Joan. For look'ee, she hath oft told me of you and the life you lived together on Bartlemy's Island."
"And has she so indeed?" quoth I.
"Aye, verily. Lord, Martin, when she waked from her swoon aboard ship and found I had sailed without you, she was like one distraught and was for having me 'bout ship that she might stay to comfort you in your solitude. And so I did, Martin, but we were beset by storm and tempest and blown far out of our course and further beset by pirates and the like evils, and in the end came hardly to England with our lives. No sooner there than my lady fits out an expedition to your relief and I busied with divers weighty concerns, she sails without me and is wrecked in the Downs, whereby she lost her ship and therewith all she possessed, save only Conisby Shene, the which she holdeth in your name, Martin."