Colonel Jones had accompanied the soldiers by direct orders from the Protector, who, from the firing of the ship, imagined for a time that Dalton and Robin had acted with treachery—treachery which, with his usual promptness, he adopted the immediate means to counteract.
Robin advanced to meet the troop, and addressing Colonel Jones respectfully, said,
"You will have the goodness to observe, sir, that Hugh Dalton is not only unarmed, but has assembled round him those whose presence were commanded at Cecil Place before the hour of one."
Colonel Jones vouchsafed no reply to Robin's observation; but it was not the less heeded on that account. He inquired, in a stern voice,
"By what means have ye wrought the destruction of yonder vessel?"
"I will tell hereafter" was the only reply he could elicit from Robin Hays. It was repeated more than once—"I will tell hereafter."
By this time the little party was surrounded. The Buccaneer attempted no resistance. His strength, his spirit, seemed gone; his child lay fainting, weak, and exhausted at his feet. Colonel Jones felt, though he did not then express it, much joy at seeing alive the girl he believed dead. Dalton attempted to raise and carry her with him, but in vain. He staggered under the light load as a drunken man. One of the troopers offered horses to the females. Dalton would not commit her to other guidance than his own, and, mounting, placed her before him.
Robin would have turned to the room that contained his mother's corpse, but Colonel Jones forbade it.
"My mother, sir, lies dead within that hut," expostulated the Ranger.
"That may be," replied the soldier; "but I say, in the words of Scripture, 'Let the dead bury their dead.'"