“Mr. Sebright! Be quiet! How dare you?... Owen!”
Williams made a vague, growling noise, but Sebright, after muttering hurriedly, “It’s all right, sir,” proceeded with the utmost coolness:
“Why, all Bristol knows it! There are those who said that you got out of the scullery window into the back street. I am only telling you...”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself to believe such tales,” she cried in great agitation. “I walked out at the gate!”
“Yes. And the gardener’s wife said you must have sneaked the key off the nail by the side of the cradle—coming to the lodge the evening before, to see her poor, ailing baby. You ought to know what love brings the best of us to. And your uncle isn’t a bloody-handed pirate either. He’s only a good-hearted, hard-swearing old heathen. And you, too, are good-hearted. Come, Mrs. Williams. I know you’re just longing to tuck this young lady up in bed—poor thing. Think what she has gone through! You ought to be fussing with sherry and biscuits and what not—making that good-for-nothing steward fly round. The beggar is hiding in the lazarette, I bet. Now then—allow me.”
I got hold of the matter there again. I said—because I felt that the matter only needed making clear:
“This young lady is the daughter of a great Spanish noble. Her father was killed by these pirates. I am myself of noble family, and I am her appointed guardian, and am trying to save her from a very horrible fate.”
She looked at me apprehensively.
“You would be committing a wicked act to try to interfere with this,” I said.
I suppose I carried conviction.