"Your daughter!—your daughter know your crime!" said the Buccaneer: "How, how was that?—Who told, who could have told her such a thing?—who had the heart?—But stay!" he continued, with his rude but natural energy, the better feelings of his nature coming out at once, when he understood what the baronet must have endured under such circumstances:—"stay, you need not tell me; there is but one man upon earth who could so act, and that man is Sir Willmott Burrell.—The villain made a shrewd guess, and fooled ye into a confession. I see through it all!—And are you so mean a coward?" he continued, turning upon Sir Robert a look of ineffable contempt—"are you cowardly enough to sacrifice your daughter to save yourself? I see it now; the secret that Burrell has wormed from you is the spear that pushes her to the altar; and you—you suffer this, and sell her and her lands to stay his tongue! Man, man, is there no feeling at your heart? Have ye a heart? I—I—a rude, untaught savage, whose hands are stained with blood, even to the very bone; who have been as a whirlwind, scattering desolation; over the deck of whose vessel has floated the pennon of every land, working destruction as a pastime; I, myself, would brand myself as a brigand and a Buccaneer—scorch the words, in letters of fire, on my brow, and stand to be gazed upon by the vile rabble at every market-cross in England, sooner than suffer my humble child to sacrifice the least portion of herself for me!"
Dalton paused for breath; Sir Robert Cecil hid his face from the flashing of his angry eye.
"Dalton!" he said at length, "I cannot do it, honoured as I have been, bearing so long an unspotted name, venerated at the court, praised by the people! Besides, I am sure Sir Willmott loves her; his whole conduct proves——"
"—Him to be what I have often declared him, and will again once more—a double-distilled villain!" interrupted the Buccaneer with renewed energy. "But what is this to me?" he added, stopping abruptly in the midst of his sentence—"What have I to do with it? My revenge upon you both is certain, unless my own purpose be accomplished—and it shall be accomplished for my child's sake. I will find out Sir Willmott, and tell him so to his teeth. Sir Robert Cecil, farewell! You, I suppose, are a courtly, a gentlemanly father! Pity that such should ever have children!" and gathering his cloak around him, he left the room without uttering another word.
We may omit our account of the interview between the Buccaneer and Sir [Willmott] Burrell; merely observing that it had the effect of chafing both in no ordinary degree.
"If I did but dare show myself at Whitehall," muttered Dalton, as he quitted the room in which he had conversed with his base opponent, "how I should be revenged! Nay, the delight I should feel in giving their deserts to both would make me risk my life, were it not for my girl's sake; but my pardon once obtained, sets me at liberty in England—Let them look to it, then."
As he loitered in one of the passages leading to the back entrance, Barbara crossed his path. At first she did not recognise him, for in the day-time he wore many disguises; and his present one was, a Geneva band and gown, covered with a long cloak of black serge. Having coldly returned his salutation, she turned into a closet to avoid further parley; but he followed, and shut the door. Barbara, who on all occasions was as timid and as helpless as a hare, trembled from head to foot, and sank on the nearest seat, her eyes fixed upon the Skipper and her quivering lip as pale as ashes.
"Barbara," he said, "you are afraid of me—you are afraid of me, child," he repeated, almost angry with her at the moment, although the feeling was so perfectly natural.
"Robin told me not to be afraid," she replied, at last; and then looking about for a chair, pointed to one at the farthest corner of the small room. "There is a seat, sir!"
"I see you want me to be as far away from you as possible, Barbara," he replied, smiling mournfully.