y telling you..."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to believe such tales," she cried
in great agitation. "I walked out at the gate!"

"Yes. And the gardener's wife said you must have sneaked the key off the
nail by the side of the cradle--coming to the lodge the evening before,
to see her poor, ailing baby. You ought to know what love brings the
best of us to. And your uncle isn't a bloody-handed pirate either.
He's only a good-hearted, hard-swearing old heathen. And you, too, are
good-hearted. Come, Mrs. Williams. I know you're just longing to tuck
this young lady up in bed--poor thing. Think what she has gone through!
You ought to be fussing with sherry and biscuits and what not--making
that good-for-nothing steward fly round. The beggar is hiding in the
lazarette, I bet. Now then--allow me."

I got hold of the matter there again. I said--because I felt that the
matter only needed making clear:

"This young lady is the daughter of a great Spanish noble. Her father
was killed by these pirates. I am myself of noble family, and I am
her appointed guardian, and am trying to save her from a very horrible
fate."

She looked at me apprehensively.

"You would be committing a wicked act to try to interfere with this," I
said.

I suppose I carried conviction.

"I must believe what you say," she said. She added suddenly, with a sort
of tremulous, warm feeling, "There, there. I don't mean to be unkind. I
knew nothing, and a married woman can't be too careful. For all I could
have told, you might have been a--a libertine; one of the poor lost
souls that Satan..."

Manuel, as if struggling with the waves, managed to free his lips.

"Excellency, help!" he spluttered, like a drowning man.

"I will give the young lady every care," Mrs. Williams said, "until
light shall be vouchsafed."

She shut the door.

"You will go too far, Sebright," Williams remonstrated; "and I'll have
to give you the sack."

"It's all right, captain. I can turn her round my little finger," said
the young man cheerily. "Somebody has to do it if you won't--or can't.
What shall we do with that yelping Dago? He's a distressful beast to
have about the decks."

"Put him in the coal-hole, I suppose, as far as Havana. I won't rest
till I see him on his way to the gallows. The Captain-General shall
be made sick of this business, or my name isn't Williams. I'll make a
breeze over it at home. You shall help in that, Kemp. You ain't afraid
of big-