"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.