"Never mind that. We cannot urge that as a valid excuse, so long as he chooses to deny being one. And after all, if he be really wrongfully suspected, you must admit that he is a very injured man."
"Injured!—nonsense. If he is not a vampyre, he's some other out-of-the-way sort of fish, you may depend. He's the oddest-looking fellow ever I came across in all my born days, ashore or afloat."
"Is he?"
"Yes, he is: and yet, when I come to look at the thing again in my mind, some droll sights that I have seen come across my memory. The sea is the place for wonders and for mysteries. Why, we see more in a day and a night there, than you landsmen could contrive to make a whole twelvemonth's wonder of."
"But you never saw a vampyre, uncle?"
"Well, I don't know that. I didn't know anything about vampyres till I came here; but that was my ignorance, you know. There might have been lots of vampyres where I've been, for all I know."
"Oh, certainly; but as regards this duel, will you wait now until to-morrow morning, before you take any further steps in the matter?"
"Till to-morrow morning?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Why, only a little while ago, you were all eagerness to have something done off-hand."