“It is very kind of you to concern yourself as to my welfare, and also somewhat inexplicable that you should do so,” said I. “You are the captain of this ship, are you not?”
“Yes, for the present,” he answered. “For how long I may be permitted to retain that position is quite another affair. I am given to understand that the men are extremely dissatisfied that I should have spared your life—our motto, you must know, is: ‘Dead men tell no tales’, and we have acted in strict accordance with it thus far, which doubtless accounts for the immunity that we have so long enjoyed. Yours is the first life that I have ever spared.”
“Thank you!” I said. “I suppose I ought to feel very much obliged to you, but somehow I do not. This disaster has absolutely ruined my prospects in the service, so you might just as well have killed me outright. And, by the way, why have you spared me? Your surgeon informed me that you spare only those who join you. I hope you don’t anticipate the possibility that I shall join you?”
My companion laughed heartily, yet there was a slight ring of bitterness methought in his laugh. “No,” he said, “I have not spared you in the hope that you will join us; we have managed thus far to do fairly well without your assistance, and I am sanguine enough to believe that, even should you decline to throw in your lot with us, we shall continue to rub along after a fashion without it. No, that was not my reason for sparing you. By the by, what is your name, if I may presume to ask? It is rather awkward to be entertaining a guest whose name, even, one does not know.”
“My name,” I answered, “is Grenvile—Richard Grenvile, and I am a lieutenant in his Britannic Majesty’s navy.”
“Quite so!” remarked my companion caustically, “I guessed as much from your uniform. You bear a good name, young sir, a very good name. Are you one of the Devon Grenviles?”
“Yes,” I answered, “I am Devon all through, on both sides. My mother was a Carew, which is another good old Devonshire family.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Ricardo, as he called himself, with a quick indrawing of his breath, as though what I had said had hurt him, though how it should have done so was quite inexplicable. “I could have sworn it! Lucy Carew! Boy, you are the living image of your mother! I recognised the likeness the moment that we came face to face, when you boarded us; and I have three times spared your life on that account—twice while the fight was in progress, and again when my people would have heaved your still breathing body to the sharks!”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, “is it possible that you can ever have known my mother?”
“Ay,” answered Ricardo, “extraordinary as it may appear to you, I once knew your mother well. However,” he broke off hurriedly, “this is not the moment in which to become reminiscent; your wound is troubling you, I can see. I will call Fonseca to dress it afresh; meanwhile, be under no apprehension as to your safety. I will protect you with my own life, if necessary, although I do not think it will quite come to that.”