Gerald and Norman Foley did their utmost to comfort Owen Massey, who was almost in despair, as he thought of the fearful danger to which Norah and her father would be subjected in the power of O’Harrall. To what extremities might he not proceed? His rage, too, would be great on finding that Owen and his companions had escaped from the island, and he might vent it on the hapless prisoners in his power.
“Should he dare to ill-treat them, swift vengeance will overtake him,” observed Norman.
“Yes; but the fear of that will not influence the man,” exclaimed Owen, pressing his hand to his brow. “Would that I had remained on the island! I might in some way have afforded them protection—or the kind black woman would have done so.”
“Bad as he is, he will not surely venture to injure my young sister and fine old father,” said Gerald.
Owen, however, who had witnessed the fierce bursts of passion to which O’Harrall was accustomed to give way, still feared the worst.
He, with the lieutenant and Gerald, was walking the deck, when his eye fell on Dillon, with the boatswain standing on the watch new him.
“Why, that is one of the fellows who betrayed the Ouzel Galley into the hands of the enemy!” said Owen.
“He is a deserter from the Champion,” observed Norman Foley, “and is the man who has now undertaken to pilot us into the pirate’s harbour. When did he join the Ouzel Galley?”
“At Kingston, with some other fellows of the same stamp,” answered Owen; “and I have good cause to regret having received them.”
“They must have been with you, then, when I boarded the Ouzel Galley as you went out of Port Royal,” Gerald took the opportunity of observing, after Norman Foley had left them.