I am." And affectionately, as if to soothe the lad's obvious alarm,
he patted his brother's shoulder. "Sir John," he explained, "talks too
much. 'Tis a fault that wants correcting. I go to teach him the virtue
of silence."

"There will be trouble, Oliver."

"So there will--for him. If a man must be saying of me that I am a
pirate, a slave-dealer, a murderer, and Heaven knows what else, he must
be ready for the consequences. But you are late, Lal. Where have you
been?"

"I rode as far as Malpas."

"As far as Malpas?" Sir Oliver's eyes narrowed, as was the trick with
him. "I hear it whispered what magnet draws you thither," he said. "Be
wary, boy. You go too much to Malpas."

"How?" quoth Lionel a trifle coldly.

"I mean that you are your father's son. Remember it, and strive not to
follow in his ways lest they bring you to his own end. I have just been
reminded of these predilections of his by good Master Peter. Go not over
often to Malpas, I say. No more." But the arm which he flung about
his younger brother's shoulders and the warmth of his embrace made
resentment of his warning quite impossible.

When he was gone, Lionel sat him down to dine, with Nick to wait on him.
He ate but little, and never addressed the old servant in the course
of that brief repast. He was very pensive. In thought he followed his
brother on that avenging visit of his to Arwenack. Killigrew was no
babe, but man of his hands, a soldier and a seaman. If any harm should
come to Oliver...He trembled at the thought; and then almost despite him
his mind ran on to calculate the consequences to himself. His fortune
would be in a very different case, he refected. In a sort of horror, he
sought to put so detestable a reflection from his mind; but it returned
insistently. It would not be denied. It forced him to a consideration of
his own circumstances.

All that he had he owed to his brother's bounty. That dissolute father
of theirs had died as such men commonly die, leaving behind him heavily
encumbered estates and many debts; the very house of Penarrow was
mortgaged, and the moneys raised on it had been drunk, or gambled, or
spent on one or another of Ralph Tressilian's many lights o' love. Then
Oliver had sold some little property near Helston, inherited from his
mother; he had sunk the money into a venture upon the Spanish Main. He
had fitted out and manned a ship, and had sailed with Hawkins upon one
of those ventures, which Sir John Killi