TROUBLE BOARDS THE ROYAL JAMES
The silence was oppressive as we ascended the poop ladder. A last
babble of Latin ended on an hysterical note. The Spanish captain
glared his hatred, gnawing at his hands as he leaned against the
rail, and when my great-uncle drew a laced handkerchief from his coat
pocket and began to wipe clean his red blade ’twas more than Don
Ascanio could stand. He stalked to the far side of the deck,
rumbling curses, and fixed his gaze upon the purple hills of
Hispaniola. Behind the steering-wheel the black flock of religious
gathered closer under the great, gilded lanthorn which crowned the
high, pulpit-like recess intended to protect the helmsman; and
amongst those cowled shaven-heads and shapeless swathed forms the
slim grace and sunny, blue eyes of Moira O’Donnell were as patent as
the growing fear with which her father met us.
My great-uncle nodded a satisfaction I was unable to comprehend.
“A fair maid, Robert!” he exclaimed. “Well, well! This is fine. I
might ask no better. I congratulate you, _chevalier_,” he added to
O’Donnell. “Your daughter is as dainty a little lady as I have seen
in a long life.”
O’Donnell understood his mood no better than I.
“I wish she was out of this,” he growled resentfully. “Don Ascanio
has placed the conduct of matters in my hands. What is next? Must
you----”
He gestured expressively toward the vessel beneath us.
“It seems-- I--I find myself-- ’Tis a nauseating prospect--
Several hundred men--and priests and nuns, Murray-- Aye, a cardinal
sin, one I’ll never have absolution for, whatever betide--
“You concern yourself without cause,” said Murray soothingly. “We
have arranged it differently, and to that end I shall act a part with
your daughter which you must support; aye, to the offering of
violence. And now, tell me, where is the treasure?”
“In the lazaret.”
“Master Saunders!” called my great-uncle.
The second mate thrust his way to the front of the mob of pirates on
the main deck.
“Take fifty men and break out a quantity of treasure from the lazaret
of the prize.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” returned Saunders, and the pirates fell over
themselves in their alacrity to have a hand in his business.
My great-uncle concluded the cleaning of his sword, crossed to the
larboard railing and tossed the bloodied handkerchief overboard.
“Oh, Master Martin,” he hailed the mate on the poop of the _Royal
James_.
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Martin. “---- ---- ---- ---- my gizzards
for a ---- ----, but we ha’ done a clean job this morning.”
“I find myself in agreement with your sentiments, Martin,” replied my
great-uncle. “Be so good as to have a whip rigged from the
foreyard-arm to sling aboard the treasure which Saunders is breaking
out. You will also tell off a score or two of men to make any
essential repairs at once. I would have the ship ready to sail as
soon as we cast off, which will be the moment the prize’s cargo is
transshipped.”
“Aye, aye, sir, I’ll attend to it all myself,” Martin assured him.
“---- my eyes for a ---- ---- ---- and all the Twelve Apostles,
blast ’em for a ---- ---- lot of ---- ---- ----.”
“A pungent fellow, Martin!” commented my great-uncle, recrossing the
deck. “But we must play our little comedy here. You, _chevalier_,
are cast for the _Anguished Parent_. I am the _Aged Libertine_.
Peter is the _Mute_ with the bowstring--be gentle, Peter.
Robert--humph! I scarce know how to describe your rôle, Robert.
You, shall we say, are to be _Youth_? Ah, yes! Youth, immortal,
selfish, impulsive, acquisitive, mendacious----”
Colonel O’Donnell regarded him as if he had lost his sanity.
“What folderol is this?” he broke in.
“You shall see,” answered Murray. “’Tis our way of carrying you off
without focusing the suspicion of Don Ascanio and his people upon
your personal participation in this interesting episode. But to
continue the enumeration of our cast. Your daughter, of course, is
the _Innocent Victim_.
“And this, Robert, leads me to recast you. I shall deny you the
satisfaction of virtue--which after all, the clergy tells us, is its
own reward. You shall be _Youthful Wantonness_, and did we adopt all
the exigencies of the plot ’twould be necessary for you finally to
strive with me for the possession of the maid. But we will wave that
anon. Play up to me, nephew! You, too, Peter!”
He left us and walked with a mincing gait, entirely different from
his real catlike prowl, up to the black-garbed cluster surrounding
Mistress O’Donnell.
“Stap me, a fair piece, this!” he drawled. “Too fair to bloom
unseen. Come hither, mistress!”
A fat monk spat an ejaculation at him in Spanish, and two of the nuns
threw their arms around the Irish girl. Murray replied to the monk
in his own tongue, and with a virulent fluency which inspired the
whole group with pitiful terror. But the maid answered him so
dauntlessly that it made the blood prickle in my neck.
“A black shame on you, old enough to be the father of me and these
others here! I know you for what you are, Captain Rip-Rap, and if
you will be thinking I am one to fear you it is a sorry wakening you
will have. Oh, you might better be down on your knees, asking pardon
for the wickedness you have wrought, than plotting fresh evil, and
threatening holy folk with your dreadful torments!”
The fat monk lifted a crucifix like a weapon and shook it in his
face, and Mistress O’Donnell put the two nuns aside and stood forth
in front of the group, with her arms spread wide to shelter them.
“So you recognize me?” said my great-uncle. “’Tis an honor,
mistress. But I fear you have heard much to my prejudice, and I must
press you to visit my ship and learn the contrary. Certes, you
should be the first to rejoice to disprove such foul allegations
against an aged man.”
“Step forward, colonel, and defend her,” I muttered under my breath
to her father.
He had the grace to blush, but he acted upon my suggestion with a
semblance of sincerity.
“Sir, sir, what is this you do?” he cried. “Certes, there is some
limit to your law-breaking! The maid is my daughter.”
My great-uncle went through his snuff ritual with an artful
exaggeration which was comical to one who knew him.
“Unfortunate!” he drawled. “I could sympathize with you, sir.”
And to me--
“Robert, you will conduct the lady to the _James_.”
For the first time Mistress O’Donnell’s glance lighted fair upon my
face.
“Master Ormerod!” she gasped.
I jumped toward her with as roughly peremptory a manner as I could
assume.
“You’d best come quietly, mistress,” I snapped.
She flung out her hands to fend me off, and the fat monk and the two
nuns cast themselves upon us, the monk striking at my head with his
heavy crucifix and the nuns scratching and clawing so that I was put
to it to protect my eyes. They were surely three of the bravest
people who ever lived, and but for Peter they would have worsted me.
The big Dutchman waded stolidly into the confusion, shoved O’Donnell
from his path, upset the monk and pushed the two nuns out of the way.
“You take der little gal, Bob,” he squeaked.
She struggled with all the strength in her lissome body, but I pinned
her hands and tossed her over my shoulder--and then her father
attacked me with the Spanish captain, whose patience had been
exhausted by this last outrage.
Murray drew his sword and forced the Spaniard back, and Peter slung
O’Donnell over his shoulder as easily as I had the maid.
“I got him, _ja_,” he announced to Murray.
My great-uncle sheathed his sword.
“Carry him along,” he said. “Since he is so much concerned as to his
daughter’s fate, we will permit him to watch it. Afterward, it may
be, he can afford us some additional amusement. Stap me, a most
persistent fellow!”
The fat monk picked himself up from the deck, waving his crucifix,
and launched a tumult of invective which my great-uncle received with
raised eyebrows and an occasional humorous interjection. But I had
my hands full controlling my prisoner, and paid no more attention to
what happened on the poop after I reached the main-deck ladder.
A line of pirates staggered across the deck, backs stooped beneath
burdens of portly casks and iron-bound chests, wire-wrapped and
padlocked, each a-dangle with leaden seals impressed with the arms of
the Spanish king. They leered at my writhing captive and grinned
openly at the ridiculous spectacle presented by Colonel O’Donnell’s
lank form draped over Peter’s shoulder. But they all looked quickly
away as my great-uncle descended to us.
“Can you manage her alone?” he asked me curtly.
My temper was thoroughly aroused by the false position in which I had
been placed, and I vented it upon him.
“I’ll manage her or go overboard with her,” I barked.
He smiled.
“The right spirit, lad! Tut, tut, mistress,” as she wrenched a hand
free and dug at my eyes. “You concern yourself for nothing. We have
but played at a game. Observe your father’s attitude.”
“The greater his shame!” she hissed. “That he should have suffered
you to take me alive!”
“We are friends,” urged my relative, lowering his voice. “’Tis but a
pretense we make----”
“Friends!”
Her white teeth clicked in an effort to bite my ear.
“Ah, you are friends to the Powers of Evil.”
“Be patient a little longer, Moira,” pleaded her father from his
perch on Peter’s shoulder. “I’ll explain----”
She went of a sudden entirely limp and burst into a passion of
weeping.
“Oh, _padre_, _padre_, to think of you a coward! ’Tis worst of all!”
O’Donnell swore helplessly.
“Let me down till I settle her mind,” he begged.
But Murray rebuked him.
“They are watching you from the poop, _chevalier_. Struggle as much
as you please--’tis all one to Peter--but if you value your future
security in Spain do not seem to give in to us.”
I climbed by way of a carronade on to the larboard bulwarks, holding
Mistress O’Donnell with one arm the while I hooked a strand of
rigging with the other; and even as I collected myself to jump the
gap that separated the two vessels she twisted free of me and would
have slid overside--to be crushed to death, most likely, for the two
hulls were continually grinding together. I caught her in the nick
of time, letting go my clutch upon the rigging, and was near to being
dragged down with her, teetering back and forth as aimless as a
feather blown by the wind. So that, what with her struggles and my
own loss of balance, I gritted my teeth and jumped most precariously,
hit or miss, and, I am bound to admit, landed upon the _James’_
bulwarks rather by good fortune than skill.
I dropped to the deck in no very pleasant mood. Faith, I could have
slapped the tear-stained face that was pressed against my shoulder;
and in the excess of my disgust I thrust her from me.
“An ill recompense for one that hath been at pains to spare your
father’s reputation, mistress,” I growled, as surly as any pirate of
the crew. “You might ha’ been my death.”
She looked at me, too surprized to answer at once, and before she had
recovered herself my great-uncle and Peter joined us, Peter still
placidly carrying Colonel O’Donnell like a flour-sack.
Murray cast a swift glance of appraisal around his ship.
“We have come through very creditably,” he remarked.
Martin hailed him from the poop.
“By your leave, sir, we’re whole aloft, ’ceptin’ a few ropes as the
topmen are splicin’ and a rent in the mizzen royal.”
“That’s well,” replied my great-uncle. “How many casualties?”
“We ha’ put twelve overside, and there’s two as’ll follow, and twenty
---- ---- ---- lubbers as must nurse their carkisses.”
“Very good, Martin. I shall be in the cabin. Let me know so soon as
the prize’s treasure is all aboard.”
He turned to us.
“The curtain is ready to fall upon our comedy. Will you accept my
arm, Mistress O’Donnell? A glass of wine and a bite of sailor’s fare
will taste better than Robert’s ear, which your hunger prompted you
to nibble. Fie, fie, my lass!”
She stared at him with utter horror, yet suffered him to place her
hand upon his arm. The spirit was gone out of her, exhausted by the
strain she had been subjected to. And I forgot my anger at sight of
the agony of dumb fear mirrored in her lovely eyes. She was like a
butterfly spiked on a thorn.
Something of the same sensation must have affected my relative, for
he patted the limp hand on his arm with a truly paternal kindness.
“Come, come, did I not say the comedy was ended?” he chided her. “I
have played the _Aged Libertine_, ’tis true, but the rôle is now
abandoned. You are as safe here as in your Spanish convent. But the
deck is too public for our revelations. We will seek the seclusion
of the cabin, and there the complete tale shall be unfolded for your
reassurance, with your father a witness to support it.”
She shook her head.
“I--I--know not what you mean.”
“To be sure,” he agreed. “But you soon shall.”
Peter, behind us, grunted to command Murray’s attention.
“Does der colonel walk or ride?”
“Stap me!” exclaimed my great-uncle, “I was forgetting your father’s
present plight, mistress.”
“I feel like a fool!” snarled the Irishman.
“How unreasonable!” deplored Murray. “Have you not been acting the
part of an _Outraged Parent_ who sacrificed all in defense of his
daughter? My dear _chevalier_, what rôle could you select more
heroical?”
“Give over your mummery,” protested O’Donnell. “I’ll not be made a
mock of, sir!”
“Rightly spoken!” cried my great-uncle. “You shall not be,
_chevalier_. Peter, good friend, prithee take three steps within the
companionway and there deposit Colonel O’Donnell with decent
propriety upon the two limbs Nature intended for his locomotion. Ah!
Excellent! Allow me, mistress!”
Peter and I followed the three of them up the dark tunnel of the
companionway.
“We are past one danger-mark, Peter,” I whispered. “What’s to come?”
“Trouble,” mumbled Peter.
“Trouble?”
“_Ja_. To get der treasure, I saidt dot was easy, Bob. But to
divide der treasure--dot’s trouble. Andt now we got a woman on der
ship--andt dot’s more trouble.”
Ben Gunn and the two negro lackeys ushered the party to their seats.
Mistress O’Donnell sank into hers with a weariness that was pathetic.
She was quite regardless of her surroundings. ’Twas as if she was
become reconciled to whatever misfortune was in store for her. And
she did not so much as glance at her father, who sat morosely upon
Murray’s left hand across the table from her. Peter took his
accustomed place at the opposite end, and I sat beside her.
“Let me give you a glass of this _aqua vitae_, my lass,” said my
great-uncle. “’Tis efficacious for fatigue and the migraine. See, I
taste it myself. ’Tis quite all right. You, too, _chevalier_?
Excellent! Perhaps you will pass the flask to Master Corlaer yonder.
You gentlemen should know each other after your recent intimate
contact. And Master Ormerod yonder--my nephew. But I believe you
and your daughter have had previous acquaintance with him.”
O’Donnell muttered something none too civil, but the maid bestirred
herself, and her eyes examined me again with the mingling of horror
and stupefaction which governed her mood.
“How come you here?” she asked. “You--you--are you also a pirate?”
“I am a captive as surely as yourself,” I returned. “Aye, more so.”
“A captive!” she exclaimed, her interest fanned alight. “But surely
you----”
My great-uncle interrupted her.
“Please, Mistress O’Donnell! Our tale is sufficiently complicated.
Let us not make it more difficult to comprehend by confusing it at
the beginning with side-issues.”
“Gunn!”
“Yessir!”
The steward ducked and scraped.
“Give us whatever food you have prepared, swiftly. And fetch up some
wines--port, burgundy, claret, madeira.”
“Yessir.”
Ben Gunn writhed himself into the companionway. Murray resumed his
discourse to the Irish girl.
“First, that there may be no misunderstanding, mistress, ’tis true
that I am he who is known as Captain Rip-Rap.”
She shrank away from him in a renewed access of terror.
“I have already told you that you have no cause to fear me,” he went
on gently, “and to prove that to you I will add that I am an
outlaw--what is called a pirate, although I detest the word
myself--because I am a Jacobite. I believe, too, I may claim your
father as my friend.”
He looked inquiringly at O’Donnell. The Irishman drained his glass.
“’Tis true,” he assented. “This gentleman is one Andrew Murray, who
was out in the ’15 and was afterward in trouble in New York Province
on the score of intrigues with our friends and the French, Moira. He
hath been a good servant to King James.”
“But for why will you have been the death of all the poor folk on the
_Santissima Trinidad_?” she cried. “And your men will be lifting the
treasure that is Spain’s, and Spain a safe haven for the exiles the
Hanoverian will not suffer to serve their rightful king and dwell in
Britain!”
“’Tis regrettable that Spaniards had to die, lass,” answered my
great-uncle, lowering his voice to a proper depth of emotion. “But I
call to your mind that Spain has not helped the Good Cause as she
might when there was a bonny chance of fetching the Stuarts home.”
“That is God’s truth,” she admitted with quick passion.
“Therefore,” pursued my great-uncle, “some of us have concerted it to
seize a portion of Spain’s treasure and turn it to the purpose of
winning back for King James his crown.”
“I am thinking ’tis not overhonest,” she said doubtfully.
“You are no more than a lass,” rebuked her father, emptying his
second glass. “’Tis not for you to be saying what is honest and what
is not honest in politics, of which you have no knowledge.”
“Indeed,” interposed my great-uncle, “the question as to what is
honest and what is dishonest in politics is one upon which men have
been unable to agree since the times of Aristotle.”
“Yet even politicians can not honestly confuse the dishonesty of
taking one man’s gold for another man’s profit,” I put in.
Mistress O’Donnell gave me a sidewise look.
“We are speaking of kings, not of men,” my great-uncle pointed out.
“I am afraid I will be of Master Ormerod’s way of thinking,” said the
Irish maid.
“You talk nonsense, Moira,” blustered her father. “Is it not better
that this treasure should be employed to recover England and all the
lands pertaining to the English crown for their rightful rulers--who
will assist in the restoration of the True Faith--than that it should
be poured into the pockets of the king’s favorites at Madrid? You
are only a child, and ’tis not fitting for you to know all that goes
on in the world; yet common sense, ordinary religious devotion and
affection for your king might tell you so much. Why, lass, there are
great lords, aye, a prince of the Church, no less, that set the seal
of their approval to what we do.”
Moira O’Donnell hung her head.
“Sure, I am only an ignorant lass as you say, _padre_, one that knows
no more than the sisters taught her in the convent; but there’s that
in me cries out stronger than learning or creed or loyalty.”
Colonel O’Donnell hammered his fist upon the table-top--he had just
drained a third glass.
“And this is the child of a race that have been pulled down from the
high places of the land by the tyrant, and their heads and limbs
strewn God knows where, and those who escaped death driven to poverty
and exile! Girl, you know not what you say. The people of Spain
will be thanking us for the use to which we turned their
treasure--and then we’ll pay it back,” he added with a happy
inspiration.
“Odds, that we will!” endorsed my great-uncle. “What’s a million and
a half pounds to royal Spain? Aye, or to an England that waxes
grandly prosperous under wise Stuart rule?”
“’Twill be the difference betwixt honor and dishonor,” I cried hotly.
“As for prosperity, England was never richer, as any man who earns
his living honestly would tell you. King George may be a Dutchman
and talk with an accent and spend more time in Hanover than London;
but he keeps his hands off trade, and that means wealth for all
who’ll labor.”
Colonel O’Donnell favored me with a fishy glance.
“It seems we must both reckon with disloyalty in our families,
Murray,” he remarked dryly.
“Never give it a thought, sir,” replied my great-uncle. “Tut, tut,
_chevalier_, they are young and shall learn by experience. Let them
argue it between themselves, eh? That should fetch them around.”
“I’ll not suffer any to call me disloyal!” exclaimed Moira. “I am
all for the Stuarts; but I’d not have them resort to dishonest means
to win what is their own.”
“Humph,” said my great-uncle. “To win their own, my lass, they must
have money. If you will tell us where else in the wide world they
are to obtain it, I’ll transship this treasure back aboard the
_Santissima Trinidad_.”
She was silent.
His suave manner conveyed subtly an implication of the importance he
attached to her approval.
“I would not inflict a dose of the material philosophy of age upon
one so young and charming, my dear,” he went on; “but possibly you
will forgive me if I indicate to you the regrettable circumstance
that the ideal is seldom attainable? In other words, mistress, to
obtain the greatest good for the greatest number of people it is
occasionally necessary to inflict misery, suffering, even death, upon
a lesser number. As in the present case, in order to secure the
means for reëstablishing King James and what your father so quaintly
terms the True Faith in the British Isles, it hath been necessary for
a gentleman of questionable legal status--myself--associated with
others of yet more dubious antecedents and repute, to procure the
death of divers Spanish persons, who, of themselves, had never
wrought any harm against us or the cause we served.
“Paradoxical, I must admit, involving an apparent denial of the
essential elements of divine justice, and in an ordinary light a
gross breach of the world’s laws and conventions. But ’tis by
precisely such contraventions of precedent and lettered laws that
epochal events are brought about. I trust my reasoning is clear?”
“Faith, sir,” she answered simply, “I think you will be poking fun at
me.”
My great-uncle took snuff.
“I was never more serious,” he asserted.
O’Donnell emptied a fourth glass with an impatient growl that masked
an oath.
“You are wasting time, Murray. Moira is a good lass, and my
daughter; but what she thinks of this venture----”
“--is of considerable importance to me,” my great-uncle protested.
“I was compelled in the beginning of our acquaintance to give her a
wrong impression of my character, and I am extremely desirous to have
her good opinion.”
“You’d better work on your nephew first,” the Irishman snapped.
“’Tis to earn his good opinion that I am so solicitous of her’s,” my
extraordinary relative admitted serenely, and the shadow of a smile
brightened her face.
“Troth, sir,” she retorted, “I am thinking that is the wisest thing
you have said, for the young man appears to be the one of you that
has a prejudice for the plain truth--I can say nothing for the large
gentleman, since he has not opened his mouth.”
Murray laughed.
“I will take to myself some of the credit you heap upon my nephew,”
he said. “As to the ‘large gentleman,’ ’tis his custom to be silent;
eh, Peter?”
“_Ja_,” said Peter.
“But why is he--” she blushed a trifle--“why is Master Ormerod a
captive? Why does he say I am a captive, if----”
“You are not a captive,” returned my great-uncle. “At least, I say
that under the impression that, as your father’s daughter and a
devout Jacobite, you would not, whatever your personal feelings might
be, undertake to interfere with our plans.”
He waited, and after a pause she nodded her head.
“My grandnephew on the other hand,” he continued, “as well as the
‘large gentleman’ yonder, are not political sympathizers with us--not
yet.”
“Nor will they ever be,” I corrected him.
“I shall beg leave to differ with you, Robert,” he replied.
“Nevertheless, in justice to you, I will go on and acquaint Mistress
O’Donnell that I carried you by force aboard my ship, Peter
accompanying you of his own free will, for reasons which sufficiently
commended themselves to me.”
“I am wondering are you all mad,” she said blankly.
“You may well say so!” I exclaimed. “The truth is this, mistress:
Master Murray hath besides his own ship’s company a second band of
pirates the which are restless beneath his thumb. He desired me to
be his lieutenant to help him hold them in restraint, and----”
“You restrained them bravely aboard the _Santissima Trinidad_!” she
said. “My faith, but I am caught in a network of lies!”
“Moira!” gurgled her father, sopping his cuff as he finished his
fifth glass. “Ye talk like a--like a--” his brogue thickened--“a
besom or what not at all. I’ll not have it! I’ll not have it, I
say!”
“That was to save you!” I declared.
“Troth, and I’m saved,” she echoed sarcastically.
“Yes, you and your father,” said Murray gravely. “Colonel O’Donnell
risked everything on this coup of ours. To protect him ’twas
essential it should never be known he was privy to it. We had the
choice of two means to that end. One was to sink the _Santissima
Trinidad_ with all hands except yourselves----”
She cried out in expostulation and clapped her hands to her eyes as
if to shut out the vision the words evoked.
“The other,” he continued, “was to arrange to remove the two of you
in such fashion as to establish your innocence. I am free to say the
first was the easiest course. The dictates of humanity, however,
prevailed.”
How he rolled that last sentence!
“And what do you know of humanity that soaked the decks of the
_Santissima Trinidad_ with blood?” she answered. “You that the
Spaniards cite as a byword for cruelty and wickedness! I will not
believe a word that you say. I will not believe any man here. You
are all smirched with the same badness.”
“Blessed Virgin guard me!” whimpered O’Donnell. “And did any ever
hear a daughter tell off her father the like of that? Glad I am the
mother that bore ye----”
Peter leaned his great bulk forward upon the table.
“Don’t talk no more, you,” he commanded the Irishman. “_Neen_, I
talk! Little gal, Bob andt I we don’t come wit’ Murray because we
like to. He makes us. _Ja_! He uses us. He uses your fat’er. He
uses you. But when we are wit’ him we do what we can to take care of
you. It is not goodt for little gals to be on pirate ships. _Neen_!”
He leaned back.
“Dot’s all.”
Her blue eyes dwelt seriously upon his vast, flat face, with its
insignificant features blobbed here and there.
“I believe _you_,” she said.
“Stap me,” jeered Murray. “Our Peter is discovered a squire o’
dames--a _preux chevalier_. Peter, you ha’ disguised your talents.
We must know more of them.”
“_Ja_,” said Peter vacantly.
Mistress O’Donnell rose from her chair.
“Sir--” she addressed my great-uncle--“you will be excusing me if I
do not linger for more conversation. What you do hath no concern
with me. I am very distraught, and my heart is sick with the black
sorrow, and I--I--” she swayed a little--“I would lie me down
and--and--weep.”
I slipped from my seat and steadied her. Her father, opposite,
blinked at us through maudlin tears.
“A sweet maid!” he hiccuped. “She’s all I ha’ left from following
the Lost Cause. Curse the Hanoverian----”
“Take her to your stateroom, Robert,” said my great-uncle. “You must
lodge with Peter.”
He rose, himself, bowing with the fine courtesy which became him
nobly.
“What we can do to serve you, dear lass, that will we right gladly.
In the mean time, do you rest and forget the nightmare scenes I would
have spared you had I known how.”
I guided her as far as the stateroom door. She thanked me faintly as
I opened it for her, and I was abruptly impelled to recover her
friendship.
“What I tried to tell you was the truth,” I murmured, the words
spilling fast from my tongue. “Indeed it was so! Peter Corlaer had
the right of it. We two are no pirates, and all that we ha’ done has
been intended to make smooth your way.”
There was a wistful light in her eyes as she lifted them under long,
black lashes.
“God send you be honest, sir,” she said. “I--I must wait to judge.
The world is gone all twirly-round. Even the _padre_----”
She choked back a sob.
“You will not misunderstand,” she ended with quiet dignity, “if I say
no more that maybe already ha’ said too much.”