“Be not alarmed, Miss Bishop. My intentions are strictly honorable. Object, matrimony. Not a hair of these men shall touch your little finger.”
Her clear hazel eyes regarded him wistfully and contemptuously and in a steady level voice she stated “Thief and pirate.”
Thief and pirate! The cruel phrase filled his brain, reëchoing and reverberating in its vast empty spaces. Thief and pirate! Not those! My God, not those!
“Pirate I may be, madam,” he replied stiffly with admirable candor, “but not thief. For, know you, that naught have I taken from any man save in the regular course of piracy. And more I have to say. Have you observed this fight? Saw you aught of bloodshed? Did any one of these Spanish dogs receive more severe punishment than a rough push or a sharp slap mayhap? No, madam, I embarked upon this career on high moral grounds and have conducted my piracy along strictly Y. M. C. A. lines and in the most sanitary manner. You see before you the only original moral pirate. No drop of blood stains my name. In all the Spanish main, I am known and feared as Captain Bloodless.”
She came slowly to him and held out her hand.
“I’m ... I’m glad,” she said and strove to smile (or was it not to smile? Who can tell?). Won’t you ... won’t you say ... good-by?”
“Good-by? Shure an’ why should I when it’s good girl I’d rather be sayin’? Arrah, ye love me, doan’t ye? Ye’ll marry me, woan’t ye?”
She sank into his arms.
“There never, never was a pirate like you, Peter,” was all she said.