"Coward!" cried Alvarado, but his words affected Hornigold not at all.
Before he could say another word the guards forced him rudely back with the two women. The worthy Señora Agapida by this time was in a state of complete and total collapse, but Mercedes bore herself—her lover marked with pleasure—as proudly and as resolutely as if she still stood within her father's palace surrounded by men who loved her and who would die for her.
Rolling the body of the prostrate old man aside, Hornigold knelt down on the white sand by the form of the sister. The moonlight shone full upon her face, and as he stooped over he scanned it with his one eye. A sudden flash of recognition came to him. With a muttered oath of surprise he looked again.
"It can't be!" he exclaimed, "and yet——"
After Fra Antonio's brave attempt at absolution, the woman had fainted. Now she opened her eyes, although she was not yet fully conscious.
"Water!" she gasped feebly, and as it chanced the boatswain had a small bottle of the precious fluid hanging from a strap over his shoulder. There was no pity in the heart of the pirate, he would have allowed the woman to die gasping for water without giving her a second thought, but when he recognized her—or thought he did—there instantly sprang into his mind a desire to make sure. If she were the person he thought her she might have information of value. Unslinging the bottle and pulling out the cork, he placed it to her lips.
"I—die," she murmured in a stronger voice. "A priest."
"There is none here," answered the boatswain. "Fra Antonio—he absolved you."
"Where is he?"
"Dead, yonder."