“An almost miraculous preservation, indeed. You must have been astonished to see Judith here. Our preservation was quite as strange as your own.”
“Ay, and I might e’en ha’ ta’en the lass Judith for a ghaist, if I hadna’ been tauld by the sailor lads of the castaways lost from the Sultana, and ta’en off the Desert Island by their captain.”
“Oh, then you were prepared to see us,” laughed Miss Conyers. “But still, I don’t see how you should be here?”
“I was taken prisoner from the Sea Scourge.”
“Oh, ye were, were ye, ye born divil!” exclaimed Judith, uncovering her face, and speaking for the first time. “And so ye turned pirate and murtherer, did ye? Troth, I’d rather ye’ed been dhrowned in the say, so I had, than ye should have turned cutthroat on me hands.”
“Ay! that’s the way she’s guided me, ever sin’ I met her on the deck,” grumbled the Scotchman. “Will ye hear a mon speak for himsel’ before you accuse him, lass?”
“And sure what can ye say for yourself at all at all, afther being found upon the Sea Scourge among a lot iv divels?”
“Young leddy,” said the Scotchman, appealing to Miss Conyers, “will you condescend to speak to the lass and bid her be reasonable?”
“Indeed, McAlpine, I am so pained to hear that you were one of the crew of the Sea Scourge, that I have nothing to say against Judith’s natural indignation,” said Miss Conyers.
“Ou, ay! a mon gets it on baith sides! May be, young leddy, ye’ll let me expleen before you judge me.”