“Lady, I did fulfil my promise most faithfully, and to the service of your son I have devoted my life. It may be weeks or months before you can see him, but I have every reason to hope that he is safe at this moment in France. But the means were afforded me of coming here, and, moreover, of producing all the existing witnesses necessary to prove the legality of his birth in the first place, his identity in the second, and his right, if not to the castle and estates of Lunnasting, to the rank which his father would have held of Marquis de Medea, and the valuable property attached to it.”
The hapless mother heaved a deep sigh.
“All that I doubt not; but could you not have brought him to me?” she gasped out, as she sunk once more back in her seat. It was some time before either she or her visitors again spoke. At last Father Mendez saw that it would be advantageous to her to break the silence.
“Donna Hilda, I crave your pardon,” he said, “but I have been charged with a request from the captain of yonder ship, one who owns himself to be deeply indebted to you in his youth, Ronald Morton. It is, that you will give shelter to an old man, who has long been ill, and his daughter, who has accompanied him. I will not tell you the old man’s name; but he feels that he has much to ask you to forgive, ere he can die in peace. He has not many days to live, so you will not have long to exercise your mercy.”
Hilda scarcely appeared to comprehend the last remarks.
“Yes, yes; whatever you desire, most readily do I grant,” she answered. “An old man, you say? If he thinks that he can die in peace on shore, let him come here and finish his remaining days.”
It was some time before Hilda was sufficiently tranquillised to listen to the details which Pedro Alvarez had to give her of the recapture of her son from the pirate Tacon, the causes of his flight from Europe, which prevented him from bringing Hernan back to Shetland, and his ultimate meeting with Tacon and Father Mendez, and of the aid which Ronald Morton had promised towards the accomplishment of his object.
“He was always a noble, generous boy!” she exclaimed, warmly; but she was little aware of the sacrifice Ronald was prepared to make to assist his rival, and one who had shown such bitter animosity towards him in obtaining his rights.
By this time the “Scorpion’s” boat returned under charge of Lieutenant Glover, with the Marquis de Medea, as Don Josef de Villavicencio had hitherto been called, and his daughter Julia. She, poor girl, had at first been astounded with the information that another person intervened between the title and estates her father had held, and that he had no right to them; but latterly, in consequence of the delicate endeavours of Glover to console her, she had become much more reconciled to her lot.
Whatever were the motives which influenced him, Father Mendez, armed with the information he had gained from Tacon, so worked either on the fears or better feelings of the dying marquis, that he professed himself ready to confess his crime, and to do his utmost to right the wronged.