"These are dreadful tidings for a father's ears," he exclaimed, stopping abreast of me. Then his mood changed with almost electric swiftness, and, hitting the table a heavy blow with his fist, he roared out: "By —, but it served the ruffian right! It was my spirit working in her, mad as she might be. That's how I would have served him, and the rest of them, one and all—the atrocious villains!"
"Of course you know," said I, "that your daughter is utterly ignorant of having slain that Spaniard—ignorant of that, and ignorant that she was out of her mind: though some dark fancy seemed to haunt her for a while, until, by a falsehood, which I detest, I dispelled it."
"What did you tell her?"
"She asked me if she had been mad, and I said 'No'!"
"Mr. Portlack," he cried, grasping me by the hand, "you have the delicacy of a gentleman. The more I know of you the more I honor you.... And she stabbed him to the heart? Oh, now, to think of it! Her mother must not be told—there must not be a whisper; she is all nerves and imagination. Who knows of this beside yourself?"
"The five seamen," said I; "the five of a crew of Englishmen, who, when they found that they had been tricked by the Spaniards, resolved to leave the schooner. They sailed away in a boat for Cadiz when we were off that port. They know all about the assassination; but, take my word for it, they'll never let you hear of them on this side of the grave."
He began to pace the cabin afresh.
"There is another," said I, "who possesses the secret, to call it so."
"You mean yourself?"
"No; a lad—a negro boy. He is now in the schooner. I am troubled to know what to do with him. I have made him believe that he and I will both be hanged if he opens his lips. Yet, he may talk by and by, Captain Noble. He is a mere lad."