"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.