“Nonsense, man! You are a subject of His Majesty King George.”
“No!” cried the buccaneer. “When that monarch ceased to give his people the protection they asked, and cruelly and unjustly banished them across the seas for no greater crime than defending a sister’s honour from a villain, that king deserved no more obedience from those he wronged.”
“The king—did this?” said Humphrey, wonderingly, as he gazed full in the speaker’s face, struggling the while to grasp the clues of something misty in his mind—a something which he felt he ought to know, and which escaped him all the while.
“The king! Well, no; but his people whom he entrusts with the care of his laws.”
“Stop!” cried Humphrey, raising himself upon one arm and gazing eagerly in the buccaneer’s face; “a sister’s honour—defended—punished—sent away for that! No; it is impossible! Yes—ah! I know you now! Abel Dell!”
The buccaneer shrank back, gazing at him wildly.
“That is what always seemed struggling in my brain,” cried Humphrey, excitedly. “Of course, I know you now. And you were sent over here—a convict, and escaped.”
The buccaneer hesitated for a few moments, with the deep colour going and coming in his face.
“Yes,” he said, at last. “Abel Dell escaped from the dreary plantation where he laboured.”
“And his sister!”