"If he were known to you in your earliest years, where would that be?"
"Why, señor, as I speak Spanish and English as if they were born in me, having only had to acquire French at New Orleans, I have always believed what was told me, that my father was an English merchant, who married a Mexican lady, and that I lost both of them by an Indian attack."
"Who introduced you at that school, where the terms were high, I have heard say?"
"It was, indeed, a fashionable seminary. I was an orphan, true, but some near kinsman was taking care of my future."
"Who was this?"
"I never saw him, and his steward only once. I cannot even describe him, but an elder schoolmate pictured him as a middle-aged man, stout and strong, not particularly tall, stern and dark, with a shifting eye and rough skin."
"And his name?"
"This major-domo was called Mathias Corvino. One of the Miss Featherleys told me that he had become an independent gentleman, and lived in New York in great style."
"Do you suppose that in the husk of Captain Kidd could abide this same Mathias Corvino, señorita?"
"I have not the skill to say so, but when the captain is angry, I am reminded of that man."