"Walk in, Captain Weaver. Pray, take that chair," said Captain Acton. "I can ask you no questions until I make you acquainted with what has happened."
"Then Miss Lucy hasn't been found, sir," said the Captain.
"She has been kidnapped by Mr Lawrence," answered Captain Acton. "She left this house early this morning to take one of those fresh morning-walks which she enjoys, and was seen to receive a letter from the hunchback steward of the Minorca. She must have immediately hastened on board the barque, urged by some statement which I am disposed to agree with my sister Miss Acton, was forged or manufactured by Mr Lawrence."
"My son, Captain Weaver, my son!" broke in the Admiral tremulously.
"The best of fathers have known your lot, sir," answered Captain Weaver. "There is no need to go to the Old Testament to learn that."
"The long and short of it is, Captain Weaver," said Captain Acton, "Mr Lawrence having lured my daughter on board the vessel he commands through some ruse which I am unable to explain, made sail at once with the lady on board, not for Kingston, Jamaica, but for Rio Janeiro, where he proposes to discharge the mate and crew after reading to them a forged promise by me that their wages to Kingston shall be trebled on their return and on their application to me. He also proposes to sell the ship and cargo, and he is manifestly acquainted with some scoundrel out at Rio, who, in spite of such vigilance as the officials of Rio may be in the habit of exercising, will undoubtedly discover a market, though not necessarily at Rio."
"Rascally things can be done at sea, sir," said Captain Weaver, whose face, instead of gaining in the look of amazement that had coloured it on his entrance, was slowly settling as Captain Acton proceeded into an expression of hard-a-weather composure. With such a look perhaps a thoroughbred, stout-hearted British sailor would view the calamity or catastrophe that was pressing strong men down upon their knees in devotion, and causing tears of terror to flow from the eyes of others.
"Oh, Captain Weaver, there are many wicked people at sea!" cried Miss Acton. "Think of the pirates! Think of the slavers! My poor, poor niece!"
"Now, sir," continued Captain Acton, "it is not the intention of Sir William Lawrence or myself to suffer my daughter to be kidnapped by an act of treachery which I forbear to say more about in the presence of my honourable and gallant old friend, Admiral Lawrence."
"Oh, Acton," exclaimed the Admiral, "nothing that you can say could approach what I feel, could express what I suffer."