As his visitors entered the place he looked up, and gave a cry of mingled pleasure and reproach.
“Uncle! Rosemary! Oh, Rosemary! Oh, uncle, how could you? Why did you?”
“Roland! Dear Roland! I couldn’t help it! I wanted to see you so much! Oh, Roland, you are glad to see me, are you not?” pleaded Rosemary, going to him and putting both her hands on his shoulders, with all the innocent candor of her childhood.
“‘Glad’ to see you? ‘Glad!’” echoed the young man, in a broken voice, as he took her tiny hands and pressed them to his heart and to his lips, while his hot tears fell upon them.
Rosemary burst into a storm of tears and wept upon his shoulder.
“Oh, uncle!” reproachfully exclaimed Roland, “why did you bring this child here?”
“Because no power on earth would have kept her away! If I had not brought her, she would have done some deadly thing! She would have gone and got a pass for herself. She would have come here alone and exposed herself to insult on the way! You don’t know what desperate dare-devils these little blue-eyed angels of our race can be, where their friends are in danger or in trouble!” said the old man.
“And, oh! it is not only that I wanted to see you,” said Rosemary, raising her tearful face from his shoulder, “but I wanted to beg you for my sake—for my sake, Roland, to be just to yourself! To have mercy on yourself! You know, as we know, that you are not a pirate or a slave-stealer! You know, as we know, that you were taken prisoner by the pirates when the Kitty was captured! Capt. Grandiere can testify to that! But he cannot swear that you never joined the pirate crew after you became their prisoner! He cannot swear that you never became the pirate captain’s mate, as they charge you with being. Only you can tell what you did after recovering from your wounds on board the pirate ship. We know that you remained true to yourself and to your friends and to every principle of manhood and honesty, and we could swear that you did, from our lifelong knowledge of you! But, oh, Roland! But, oh, Roland! Such testimony would not be worth anything in a court of law, where moral conviction is not legal evidence! Oh, dear, dear Roland! Take pity on yourself and on us, and testify to the facts that will vindicate you!”
These were her words, but no pen can give the pleading, prayerful, pathetic tones and looks and gestures with which they were uttered.
The whole strong frame of the young man shook with the emotion that convulsed his soul.