I told Deverell enough to make him understand, without my saying so, that the Queen had told me her life story, and, knowing this, he talked quite freely. From what he said I satisfied myself that not only had the elder Crofton been an out-and-out pirate but his bewitching daughter had done honor to his name, for two or three years at least. We visited the machine shop, which was quite elaborately fitted up for the repair of ship and guns, and walked through the village, where he pointed out men who had lost arms or legs in the service of the Queen and her father, and others who had been retired for age and were now pensioners. Deverell was a true pirate and told me with delight of some of their exploits. His reverence for the Queen amounted to idolatry. If his love for her had been returned I would not have been surprised for, though lacking some of the finer instincts of a gentleman, as could well be imagined from his surroundings for years, he was an unusually likable chap and of a type that ordinarily appeals strongly to women. He was about forty years old, two inches less than six feet tall, and had the figure of an Apollo. His steel gray eyes sparkled with friendship or shot sparks, and his brown hair fairly bristled when he was angry. He impressed one as being altogether a man, the soul of loyalty, a perfect friend, and brave to the last drop of his blood.
After luncheon the Queen and I set off toward the mountain top, nearly one thousand feet above us, but we did not reach it, for the heat was intense.
“Well, what do you think of us now?” she asked, on our way down, after I had told her how I had spent the forenoon.
“I think enough of you to devote my whole life to your service,” I quickly replied.
She gave me a long, searching look, that seemed to go right through me and lay my whole soul open before her, then took the lead and, without a word, walked rapidly on to her bungalow, and I walked on to mine.
When I came back to dinner she was waiting for me in her bower. As she came to meet me and extended her hand she said, earnestly and almost sadly, “I believe you were honest and sincere in what you said this afternoon, but I can only say ‘Thank you.’ What you suggested is impossible.”
In the three weeks that followed I urged my love upon her with all of my determination but she refused to change her decision and apparently was as firm in it as at first. It was agreed that we should both give up piracy, in any form, but all of our arguments ended there until finally, one afternoon as we sat looking out over the sea and talking, for once, of the ordinary affairs of life, she said, slowly and emphatically, “Deverell was my father’s right-hand-man. I am going to give this place to him, just as it stands, take the next ship for England, lay my case before the Home Secretary and ask him for a full pardon. I will confess to him that I have taken from the pirates what they had stolen from others. To offset the offence I have hundreds of written statements from people whose lives I have saved from the pirates by coming up in the nick of time, for which service I never accepted payment of any kind. I believe I can secure a pardon and if I do, I will meet you, with a clear conscience, and become your wife.”
In a tumult of joy, which came over me with the force of an electric shock, I sprang to her side and started to take her in my arms, but she stretched out her hand and held me off. I had never seen such a serious look on her exquisite face and there were tears in her eyes.
“Not yet,” she said, tenderly but firmly. “I have said I would marry you only when my name had been cleared of its dishonor, and until that condition has been complied with you cannot regard me as your promised wife. After that you may do with me as you please, but not until then.”
Her accession of conscience had been so great that she considered herself disgraced, and that nothing short of a pardon from the British Government, so bitterly hated by her father, could restore her respectability. With my most persuasive arguments I tried to dissuade her from going to England, but without effect. I urged her to marry me at once and go with me to America or some other country, where we would not be reminded of the past and have nothing to fear from it, but she would not listen. She feared she would be found and arrested later on and bring dishonor on me; she seemed to have no thought of herself in that respect, and, seeing that, I better understood the depth of her great love.