It was the captain who broke the silence at last.
“Am I in the way?” he asked, looking at his wife.
“No,” said the General, answering for her. “Hélène has told me all. I see that she is lost to us—”
“No,” the captain put in quickly; “in a few years’ time the statute of limitations will allow me to go back to France. When the conscience is clear, and a man has broken the law in obedience to——” he stopped short, as if scorning to justify himself.
“How can you commit new murders, such as I have seen with my own eyes, without remorse?”
“We had no provisions,” the privateer captain retorted calmly.
“But if you had set the men ashore—”
“They would have given the alarm and sent a man-of-war after us, and we should never have seen Chili again.”
“Before France would have given warning to the Spanish admiralty—” began the General.
“But France might take it amiss that a man, with a warrant still out against him, should seize a brig chartered by Bordeaux merchants. And for that matter, have you never fired a shot or so too many in battle?”