It is hardly necessary to direct the reader's attention to the quickness and ingenuity at all times displayed by Robin Hays, or the facility with which he adapted himself to any circumstance or situation that was likely to favour or further his designs. The moment the Rabbi had stated his intention of visiting Hampton Court, he perceived that, as a Jewish servant, he might have abundant opportunities of ascertaining the precise condition of the Cavalier: fortunately for his purpose, the mention of Hugh Dalton's name at once decided Ben Israel in granting his request.
The Jew had received intimation that the noted and well-known commander of the Fire-fly had been lying off St. Vallery, and making many inquiries relative to his daughter, who had at length been traced on board his cruiser by her continental friends. "Doubtless," thought the Rabbi, "I may be enabled to draw forth, or bribe forth, from this his associate, whatever knowledge he may possess of the views and objects which they contemplate as regards my most wretched daughter." In pursuance of this plan he commenced a series of examinations as they journeyed towards Hampton Court; which Robin, with all his dexterity, would have found it difficult to parry, if he had had any intention or desire so to do. Suddenly it occurred to the Ranger that the pretended dumb boy was no other than Ben Israel's daughter, and he frankly mentioned his suspicions.
The old man at first shrank from the supposition with extreme horror. "It was impossible," he said, "that his child should so far forget her birth and station, as to degrade herself by assuming male attire;" but Robin reminded him that when a woman loves, as she must have done, and has once sacrificed her duty, perhaps her honour, all obstacles become as nought. The Jew groaned heavily, and remained long silent; she was his only, and his beloved one; and, though the Jewish laws were strict, even unto death, against any who wedded with strangers, yet he loved her despite her disobedience, and the more he thought, the more resolved he became to punish the betrayer of her innocence and faith.
Robin was also greatly distressed; the fear of some evil occurring to Barbara took forcible possession of his mind. Why should this girl, if indeed Jeromio's charge was actually a girl, why should she menace Barbara? What had Barbara to do with the foul transaction? Could it be possible, that, from her being tricked out with so much finery, the stranger mistook the maid for the mistress; and with impotent rage, was warning or threatening her, in an unknown tongue, against a marriage with Burrell! He could not comprehend the matter; and the more he was at fault, the more anxious he became. He, in his own mind, reproached even the Buccaneer for imparting to him only half measures.
"Had I known," thought Robin, "the true particulars about Sir Willmott's affairs, of which I am convinced, from many circumstances, Dalton was in full possession, I could have assisted in all things, and prevented results that may hereafter happen." There was another idea that had lately mingled much with the Ranger's harassed feelings—Constantia's intended marriage. Robin was satisfied that a strong regard, if not a deeply-rooted affection, existed between Walter De Guerre and Barbara's kind mistress; and he thought that Hugh Dalton's manifesting so little interest on the subject was not at all in keeping with his usually chivalrous feelings towards woman-kind, or his professed esteem and affection for his young friend. He knew that the Buccaneer's heart was set upon attaining a free pardon; and he also knew that he had some powerful claim upon the interest of Sir Robert Cecil; he knew, moreover, Dalton's principal motive for bringing over the Cavalier; but with all his sagacity, he could not discover why he did not, at once and for ever, set all things right, by exhibiting Sir Willmott Burrell in his true colours. Robin had repeatedly urged the Buccaneer on this subject, but his constant reply was,—
"I have no business with other people's children; I must look to my own. If they have been kind to Barbara, they have had good reason for it. It will be a fine punishment, hereafter, to Sir Willmott; one that may come, or may not come, as he behaves; but it will be a punishment in reserve, should he, in the end, discover that Mistress Cecil may be no heiress." In fact, the only time that the Buccaneer felt any strong inclination to prevent the sacrifice Constantia was about to make, was when he found that she knew her father's crime, but was willing to give herself to misery as the price of secrecy; then, indeed, had his own pardon been secured, he would have stated to the Protector's face the deep villany of the Master of Burrell. Until his return on board the Fire-fly, and his suppression of the mutiny excited by Sir Willmott and the treachery of Jeromio, he had no idea that Burrell, base as he knew him to be, would have aimed against his life.
The Buccaneer was a brave, bold, intrepid, careless man; more skilled in the tricks of war than in tracing the secret workings of the human mind, or in watching the shades and modifications of the human character. His very love for his daughter had more of the protecting and proud care of the eagle about it, than the fostering gentleness with which the tender parent guards its young; he was proud of her, and he was resolved to use every possible means to make her proud of him. He had boasted to Sir Robert Cecil that it was his suspicions made him commit "forged documents to the flames," at the time when the baronet imagined that all proofs of his crimes had been destroyed; but, in truth, Dalton had mislaid the letters, and, eager to end all arrangements then pending, he burned some papers, which he had hastily framed for the purpose, to satisfy Sir Robert Cecil. When in after years it occurred to him that, if he obtained those papers he could wind Sir Robert to his purpose, he searched every corner of the Gull's Nest Crag until they were discovered; so that, in fact, he owed their possession to chance, and not to skilfulness. Even the boy Springall had seen through the Italian's character; but Dalton had been so accustomed to find his bravery overwhelmingly successful, and consequently to trust to it almost implicitly, that his fine intellect was suffered to lie dormant, where it would have often saved him from much that he endured. If he had thought deeply, he would have seen the impropriety of trusting the Fire-fly at any time to Jeromio's command, because, as he had found him guilty of so many acts of treachery towards others, he should have known, that it only needed sufficient bribery, or inducement of any other kind, to turn that treachery upon himself.
His last interview with Sir Robert Cecil had made him aware that the baronet had really lost the greater part of the influence he once maintained at Whitehall; and since he had been so much off and on the English coast, he had heard enough to convince him that Cromwell granted few favours to those who had not much usefulness to bestow in return. Sir Robert was broken in intellect and constitution: he had no son to whom the Protector could look for support in case of broil or disturbance, and the Buccaneer was ignorant of the strong and friendly ties that had united the families for so long a series of years. He had fancied that fear would compel Sir Willmott Burrell to press his suit; but the atrocious attempt upon his life assured him that there was nothing to expect from him but the blackest villany. When, therefore, he despatched, with all the ferocity of a true Buccaneer, the head of Jeromio as a wedding-present to Sir Willmott, he at the same time transmitted to the Protector, by a trusty messenger, the Master of Burrell's own directions touching the destruction of the Jewish Zillah, and stated that if his Highness would grant him a free pardon, which he had certain weighty reasons for desiring, he believed it was in his power to produce the Rabbi's daughter. His communication concluded by entreating that his Highness would prevent the marriage of the Master of Burrell, at all events until the following week.
His envoy had particular orders neither to eat, drink, nor sleep, until he had found means of placing the packet in the hands of the Protector. Dalton having so far eased his mind, bitterly cursed his folly that he had not in the first instance, instead of proceeding to St. Vallery in search of the Jewess, informed Ben Israel of the transaction, who would at once have obtained his pardon, as the price of his daughter's restoration and Burrell's punishment.
It will be easily conceived that on the night which Burrell expected to be the last of the Buccaneer's existence he neither slumbered nor slept. The earliest break of morning found him on the cliffs at no great distance from the Gull's Nest Crag, waiting for the signal that had been agreed upon between Jeromio and himself, as announcing the success of their plan. There was no speck upon the blue waves between him and the distant coast of Essex, which, from the point on which he stood, looked like a dark line upon the waters; neither was there, more ocean-ward, a single vessel to be seen. He remained upon the cliff for a considerable time. As the dawn brightened into day, the little skiffs of the fishermen residing on the Isle of Shepey put off, sometimes in company, sometimes singly, from their several anchorings. Then a sail divided the horizon, then another, and another; but still no signal told him that treachery had prospered. At length the sun had fully risen. He then resolved upon hastening to the Gull's Nest, with the faint hope that some message from Jeromio might have been forwarded thither. Time was to him, upon that eventful morning, of far higher value than gold; yet above an hour had been spent in fruitless efforts to learn the result of an attempt on which he knew that much of his future fate depended. He had not proceeded far upon his course, when he was literally seized upon by the Reverend Jonas Fleetword, who ever appeared to the troubled and plotting Sir Willmott in the character of an evil genius.