“It is lucky as it is,” said the Provost; “yet I question whether the writer of this letter would not rather that you had found the nest cold and the bird flown.”
So saying, he handed the letter to Magnus Troil, who returned it with a smile, but without any observation, aware, doubtless, with the sagacious reader, that Norna had her own reasons for calculating with accuracy on the date of the Halcyon’s arrival.
Without puzzling himself farther concerning a circumstance which seemed inexplicable, the Captain requested that the examinations might proceed; and Cleveland and Altamont, as he chose to be called, were brought up the first of the pirate crew, on the charge of having acted as Captain and Lieutenant. They had just commenced the examination, when, after some expostulation with the officers who kept the door, Basil Mertoun burst into the apartment and exclaimed, “Take the old victim for the young one!—I am Basil Vaughan, too well known on the windward station—take my life, and spare my son’s!”
All were astonished, and none more than Magnus Troil, who hastily explained to the Magistrates and Captain Weatherport, that this gentleman had been living peaceably and honestly on the Mainland of Zetland for many years.
“In that case,” said the Captain, “I wash my hands of the poor man, for he is safe, under two proclamations of mercy; and, by my soul, when I see them, the father and his offspring, hanging on each other’s neck, I wish I could say as much for the son.”
“But how is it—how can it be?” said the Provost; “we always called the old man Mertoun, and the young, Cleveland, and now it seems they are both named Vaughan.”
“Vaughan,” answered Magnus, “is a name which I have some reason to remember; and, from what I have lately heard from my cousin Norna, that old man has a right to bear it.”
“And, I trust, the young man also,” said the Captain, who had been looking over a memorandum. “Listen to me a moment,” added he, addressing the younger Vaughan, whom we have hitherto called Cleveland. “Hark you, sir, your name is said to be Clement Vaughan—are you the same, who, then a mere boy, commanded a party of rovers, who, about eight or nine years ago, pillaged a Spanish village called Quempoa, on the Spanish Main, with the purpose of seizing some treasure?”
“It will avail me nothing to deny it,” answered the prisoner.
“No,” said Captain Weatherport, “but it may do you service to admit it.—Well, the muleteers escaped with the treasure, while you were engaged in protecting, at the hazard of your own life, the honour of two Spanish ladies against the brutality of your followers. Do you remember any thing of this?”