“Obstinacy and extravagance!” muttered Myndert; “what use can a troublesome girl be to one of thy habits? If thou hast deluded—”
“I have deluded none. The brigantine is not an Algerine, to ask and take ransom.”
“Then let it submit to what I believe it is yet a stranger. If thou hast not enticed my niece away, by, Heaven knows, a most vain delusion! let the vessel be searched. This will make the minds of the young men tranquil, and keep the treaty open between us, and the value of the article fixed in the market.”
“Freely:—but mark! If certain bales containing worthless furs of martens and beavers, with other articles of thy colony trade, should discover the character of my correspondents, I stand exonerated of all breach of faith.”
“There is prudence in that.—Yes, there must be no impertinent eyes peeping into bales and packages. Well, I see, Master Seadrift, the impossibility of immediately coming to an understanding; and therefore I will quit thy vessel, for truly a merchant of reputation should have no unnecessary connexion with one so suspected.”
The free-trader smiled, partly in scorn and yet much in sadness, and passed his fingers over the strings of the guitar.
“Show this worthy burgher to his friends, Zephyr,” he said; and, bowing to the Alderman, he dismissed him in a manner that betrayed a singular compound of feeling. One quick to discover the traces of human passion, might have fancied, that regret, and even sorrow, were powerfully blended with the natural or assumed recklessness of the smuggler’s air and language.
CHAPTER XVI.
“This will prove a brave kingdom to me;
Where I shall have my music, for nothing.”
Tempest.