"Me! Me! Me!" declared Mrs. Narby with vehemence, and wreathed her old arms round the shaking, drooping figure of her miserable son.
"Aye, aye," commented the sage, pointing with the stem of his pipe, "mark hoo th' mither-luve rins thro' a' th' wand. Yon's Alfred Tennyson, I'm theenkin'."
Herries, who was the person principally interested, seeing that on the truth of this statement depended the possession of fifty thousand a year, turned to the mother and son.
"Which one of you did it?" he demanded. "I must know for certain."
Pope made no reply, for his tongue clove to the roof of his palate, and Mrs. Narby, wiping his damp brow with her handkerchief, replied for him.
"I tell you I killed yer bloomin' uncle."
"And I say that Pope Narby did," declared the skipper decisively.
"And I," cried Maud, rising suddenly and stretching out her arm in a threatening manner, "I say that Bruce Kyles is the assassin."
Señora Guzman leaned across the table, and pushed Maud back on to the divan.
"If you dare to say that, I'll have you thrown overboard. Bruce," she addressed the Captain imperiously, "tell them what happened on that night. Mr. Herries knows that we came to England to get money for the expedition; he knows that you made love to Maud by my order, so that Sir Simon should help us; and he has been told that Sir Simon wrote a letter saying that this woman," she pointed to the indignant Maud, "was disinherited, and that he would meet you at the inn to pay you to give her up. Give her up," laughed the lady insultingly, "a woman for whom he did not care two straws while I lived to be his wife."