This reply would have irritated many men, but Rolf looked at him, and said quietly—“That may be your present name, but unless my recollection strangely deceives me, you were called Mendez.”
The priest bowed and replied—“I have seen many people in the course of my life. It is possible we have met, but you will understand that the memory of a man, as he advances in life, is not as good as it was in his youth.”
“I have the advantage of you in that respect, certainly,” persisted Rolf, in a manner very different to his usual custom.
“Come, come, Father Mendez! we were too much together in days gone by for you to have forgotten me any more than I have forgotten you,” continued Morton. “I do not wish to annoy you, but I wish you to do an act of justice. The son of your former patron and friend, Don Hernan Escalante, was carried off from his mother’s house by the crew of a schooner which suddenly appeared before the place. He has never since been heard of: what has become of him? I ask. His mother has friends in this ship who will insist on knowing the truth. It will be wiser for you to speak it at once.”
The priest was more thrown off his guard by this appeal than he probably had ever been before.
“I know nothing of Don Hernan’s child,” he answered quickly. “I did not carry him off, nor was I privy to it. I could not be guilty of such a deed; the members of my order never employ violence to bring about what they desire. That alone ought to convince you that I am guiltless of the charge you make against me.”
Morton was not in the slightest degree more convinced than at first by what the father said.
“Then, at all events, you do not deny that you were in Shetland, and that I knew you as Father Mendez?” said Rolf.
The marquis and his daughter were all this time watching the speaker with looks of astonishment.
“There would be no object in denying that such was the case,” answered the priest. “I was in Shetland rather more than twenty years ago, and I was then known as Father Mendez. I am at present called Father John.”