I remembered the thrill of reprobation with which even the most devoted adherents of King George had heard of the butchery of the Scots wounded after Culloden.
"'Tis not yourself alone must bear the disgrace of such a deed," I tried again. "'Twill attach an irremovable stigma to your cause. No honest Jacobite can ever afterward call Cumberland butcher. Aye, and if I know aught of Mistress O'Donnell she will refuse to have anything to do with so horrible a crime. Be sure 'twill bring a trail of ill-luck will swamp the Pretender and all his train."
He took snuff with his accustomed fastidiousness.
"Your arguments carry weight, I am bound to admit," he said, returning the box to his pocket. "What alternative have you to suggest?"
"Cripple the ship to give you time to escape."
"That's well enough," he argued; "but you take no thought to Colonel O'Donnell's plight. What will be said of him after he is brought aboard the James?"
The idea which came to me then I put away as distasteful, but rack my brain as I would I could produce no substitute for it.
"There's but one thing to do," I said. "You must make pretense of bearing off the daughter, and you can imprison the father, too, in order to silence his objections."
"A fit rôle for a pirate captain," mused my great-uncle. "El capitán Rrrip-Rrrap and how he devoured the virgin! I can hear the stories that will be told in the Havana wine-shops. But I must have my price, Robert. If I spare such Spaniards as escape our great guns and the boarding-cutlasses, will you agree to stand back of me in the division of the spoils with Flint?"
"I'll not become lieutenant in your piracies, if that be your meaning," I returned.