"It's a lie--a lie. Bruce, Bruce, you love me, me only," and Maud looked at her quondam lover with agonised appeal.
"I don't love you at all," mumbled the skipper in the most brazen manner, and cutting anything but an heroic figure, "you knew that I was engaged to Señora Guzman, and yet you wanted me to throw her over and be your husband. I never had any intention of marrying you. All I wanted was to get money out of your father, and----"
"Oh, cut it short, you hound," interrupted Herries fiercely.
Kyles turned livid.
"You are on my boat, in my power," he said, in a slow and deadly manner.
"What do I care for that?" retorted the young man, facing the buccaneer with determination. "You have acted like a cur towards my cousin."
"No, no," moaned Maud, who persisted in believing that Kyles was acting a part, because Señora Guzman was present, "if I had the money he would marry me."
"Very good," said Herries. "Captain Kyles, I offer you half the money left by my uncle, that is, twenty-five thousand a year, if you will marry Maud Tedder."
"Bruce! Bruce!" cried Maud, stretching out her arms, "you consent?"
"Bruce," cried Donna Maria, in her turn, with flashing eyes, "you promised me to----"