Chapter XIII: Trouble Boards the Royal James

The silence was oppressive as we ascended the poop ladder. A last babble of Latin ended on an hysterical note. The Spanish captain glared his hatred, gnawing at his hands as he leaned against the rail, and when my great-uncle drew a laced handkerchief from his coat pocket and began to wipe clean his red blade ’twas more than Don Ascanio could stand. He stalked to the far side of the deck, rumbling curses, and fixed his gaze upon the purple hills of Hispaniola. Behind the steering-wheel the black flock of religious gathered closer under the great, gilded lanthorn which crowned the high, pulpit-like recess intended to protect the helmsman; and amongst those cowled shaven-heads and shapeless swathed forms the slim grace and sunny, blue eyes of Moira O’Donnell were as patent as the growing fear with which her father met us.

My great-uncle nodded a satisfaction I was unable to comprehend.

“A fair maid, Robert!” he exclaimed. “Well, well! This is fine. I might ask no better. I congratulate you, _chevalier_,” he added to O’Donnell. “Your daughter is as dainty a little lady as I have seen in a long life.”

O’Donnell understood his mood no better than I.

“I wish she was out of this,” he growled resentfully. “Don Ascanio has placed the conduct of matters in my hands. What is next? Must you----”

He gestured expressively toward the vessel beneath us.

“It seems-- I--I find myself-- ’Tis a nauseating prospect-- Several hundred men--and priests and nuns, Murray-- Aye, a cardinal sin, one I’ll never have absolution for, whatever betide--

“You concern yourself without cause,” said Murray soothingly. “We have arranged it differently, and to that end I shall act a part with your daughter which you must support; aye, to the offering of violence. And now, tell me, where is the treasure?”

“In the lazaret.”

“Master Saunders!” called my great-uncle.

The second mate thrust his way to the front of the mob of pirates on the main deck.

“Take fifty men and break out a quantity of treasure from the lazaret of the prize.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” returned Saunders, and the pirates fell over themselves in their alacrity to have a hand in his business.

My great-uncle concluded the cleaning of his sword, crossed to the larboard railing and tossed the bloodied handkerchief overboard.

“Oh, Master Martin,” he hailed the mate on the poop of the _Royal James_.

“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Martin. “---- ---- ---- ---- my gizzards for a ---- ----, but we ha’ done a clean job this morning.”

“I find myself in agreement with your sentiments, Martin,” replied my great-uncle. “Be so good as to have a whip rigged from the foreyard-arm to sling aboard the treasure which Saunders is breaking out. You will also tell off a score or two of men to make any essential repairs at once. I would have the ship ready to sail as soon as we cast off, which will be the moment the prize’s cargo is transshipped.”

“Aye, aye, sir, I’ll attend to it all myself,” Martin assured him. “---- my eyes for a ---- ---- ---- and all the Twelve Apostles, blast ’em for a ---- ---- lot of ---- ---- ----.”

“A pungent fellow, Martin!” commented my great-uncle, recrossing the deck. “But we must play our little comedy here. You, _chevalier_, are cast for the _Anguished Parent_. I am the _Aged Libertine_. Peter is the _Mute_ with the bowstring--be gentle, Peter. Robert--humph! I scarce know how to describe your rôle, Robert. You, shall we say, are to be _Youth_? Ah, yes! Youth, immortal, selfish, impulsive, acquisitive, mendacious----”

Colonel O’Donnell regarded him as if he had lost his sanity.

“What folderol is this?” he broke in.

“You shall see,” answered Murray. “’Tis our way of carrying you off without focusing the suspicion of Don Ascanio and his people upon your personal participation in this interesting episode. But to continue the enumeration of our cast. Your daughter, of course, is the _Innocent Victim_.

“And this, Robert, leads me to recast you. I shall deny you the satisfaction of virtue--which after all, the clergy tells us, is its own reward. You shall be _Youthful Wantonness_, and did we adopt all the exigencies of the plot ’twould be necessary for you finally to strive with me for the possession of the maid. But we will wave that anon. Play up to me, nephew! You, too, Peter!”

He left us and walked with a mincing gait, entirely different from his real catlike prowl, up to the black-garbed cluster surrounding Mistress O’Donnell.

“Stap me, a fair piece, this!” he drawled. “Too fair to bloom unseen. Come hither, mistress!”

A fat monk spat an ejaculation at him in Spanish, and two of the nuns threw their arms around the Irish girl. Murray replied to the monk in his own tongue, and with a virulent fluency which inspired the whole group with pitiful terror. But the maid answered him so dauntlessly that it made the blood prickle in my neck.

“A black shame on you, old enough to be the father of me and these others here! I know you for what you are, Captain Rip-Rap, and if you will be thinking I am one to fear you it is a sorry wakening you will have. Oh, you might better be down on your knees, asking pardon for the wickedness you have wrought, than plotting fresh evil, and threatening holy folk with your dreadful torments!”

The fat monk lifted a crucifix like a weapon and shook it in his face, and Mistress O’Donnell put the two nuns aside and stood forth in front of the group, with her arms spread wide to shelter them.

“So you recognize me?” said my great-uncle. “’Tis an honor, mistress. But I fear you have heard much to my prejudice, and I must press you to visit my ship and learn the contrary. Certes, you should be the first to rejoice to disprove such foul allegations against an aged man.”

“Step forward, colonel, and defend her,” I muttered under my breath to her father.

He had the grace to blush, but he acted upon my suggestion with a semblance of sincerity.

“Sir, sir, what is this you do?” he cried. “Certes, there is some limit to your law-breaking! The maid is my daughter.”

My great-uncle went through his snuff ritual with an artful exaggeration which was comical to one who knew him.

“Unfortunate!” he drawled. “I could sympathize with you, sir.”

And to me--

“Robert, you will conduct the lady to the _James_.”

For the first time Mistress O’Donnell’s glance lighted fair upon my face.

“Master Ormerod!” she gasped.

I jumped toward her with as roughly peremptory a manner as I could assume.

“You’d best come quietly, mistress,” I snapped.

She flung out her hands to fend me off, and the fat monk and the two nuns cast themselves upon us, the monk striking at my head with his heavy crucifix and the nuns scratching and clawing so that I was put to it to protect my eyes. They were surely three of the bravest people who ever lived, and but for Peter they would have worsted me.

The big Dutchman waded stolidly into the confusion, shoved O’Donnell from his path, upset the monk and pushed the two nuns out of the way.

“You take der little gal, Bob,” he squeaked.

She struggled with all the strength in her lissome body, but I pinned her hands and tossed her over my shoulder--and then her father attacked me with the Spanish captain, whose patience had been exhausted by this last outrage.

Murray drew his sword and forced the Spaniard back, and Peter slung O’Donnell over his shoulder as easily as I had the maid.

“I got him, _ja_,” he announced to Murray.

My great-uncle sheathed his sword.

“Carry him along,” he said. “Since he is so much concerned as to his daughter’s fate, we will permit him to watch it. Afterward, it may be, he can afford us some additional amusement. Stap me, a most persistent fellow!”

The fat monk picked himself up from the deck, waving his crucifix, and launched a tumult of invective which my great-uncle received with raised eyebrows and an occasional humorous interjection. But I had my hands full controlling my prisoner, and paid no more attention to what happened on the poop after I reached the main-deck ladder.

A line of pirates staggered across the deck, backs stooped beneath burdens of portly casks and iron-bound chests, wire-wrapped and padlocked, each a-dangle with leaden seals impressed with the arms of the Spanish king. They leered at my writhing captive and grinned openly at the ridiculous spectacle presented by Colonel O’Donnell’s lank form draped over Peter’s shoulder. But they all looked quickly away as my great-uncle descended to us.

“Can you manage her alone?” he asked me curtly.

My temper was thoroughly aroused by the false position in which I had been placed, and I vented it upon him.

“I’ll manage her or go overboard with her,” I barked.

He smiled.

“The right spirit, lad! Tut, tut, mistress,” as she wrenched a hand free and dug at my eyes. “You concern yourself for nothing. We have but played at a game. Observe your father’s attitude.”

“The greater his shame!” she hissed. “That he should have suffered you to take me alive!”

“We are friends,” urged my relative, lowering his voice. “’Tis but a pretense we make----”

“Friends!”

Her white teeth clicked in an effort to bite my ear.

“Ah, you are friends to the Powers of Evil.”

“Be patient a little longer, Moira,” pleaded her father from his perch on Peter’s shoulder. “I’ll explain----”

She went of a sudden entirely limp and burst into a passion of weeping.

“Oh, _padre_, _padre_, to think of you a coward! ’Tis worst of all!”

O’Donnell swore helplessly.

“Let me down till I settle her mind,” he begged.

But Murray rebuked him.

“They are watching you from the poop, _chevalier_. Struggle as much as you please--’tis all one to Peter--but if you value your future security in Spain do not seem to give in to us.”

I climbed by way of a carronade on to the larboard bulwarks, holding Mistress O’Donnell with one arm the while I hooked a strand of rigging with the other; and even as I collected myself to jump the gap that separated the two vessels she twisted free of me and would have slid overside--to be crushed to death, most likely, for the two hulls were continually grinding together. I caught her in the nick of time, letting go my clutch upon the rigging, and was near to being dragged down with her, teetering back and forth as aimless as a feather blown by the wind. So that, what with her struggles and my own loss of balance, I gritted my teeth and jumped most precariously, hit or miss, and, I am bound to admit, landed upon the _James’_ bulwarks rather by good fortune than skill.

I dropped to the deck in no very pleasant mood. Faith, I could have slapped the tear-stained face that was pressed against my shoulder; and in the excess of my disgust I thrust her from me.

“An ill recompense for one that hath been at pains to spare your father’s reputation, mistress,” I growled, as surly as any pirate of the crew. “You might ha’ been my death.”

She looked at me, too surprized to answer at once, and before she had recovered herself my great-uncle and Peter joined us, Peter still placidly carrying Colonel O’Donnell like a flour-sack.

Murray cast a swift glance of appraisal around his ship.

“We have come through very creditably,” he remarked.

Martin hailed him from the poop.

“By your leave, sir, we’re whole aloft, ’ceptin’ a few ropes as the topmen are splicin’ and a rent in the mizzen royal.”

“That’s well,” replied my great-uncle. “How many casualties?”

“We ha’ put twelve overside, and there’s two as’ll follow, and twenty ---- ---- ---- lubbers as must nurse their carkisses.”

“Very good, Martin. I shall be in the cabin. Let me know so soon as the prize’s treasure is all aboard.”

He turned to us.

“The curtain is ready to fall upon our comedy. Will you accept my arm, Mistress O’Donnell? A glass of wine and a bite of sailor’s fare will taste better than Robert’s ear, which your hunger prompted you to nibble. Fie, fie, my lass!”

She stared at him with utter horror, yet suffered him to place her hand upon his arm. The spirit was gone out of her, exhausted by the strain she had been subjected to. And I forgot my anger at sight of the agony of dumb fear mirrored in her lovely eyes. She was like a butterfly spiked on a thorn.

Something of the same sensation must have affected my relative, for he patted the limp hand on his arm with a truly paternal kindness.

“Come, come, did I not say the comedy was ended?” he chided her. “I have played the _Aged Libertine_, ’tis true, but the rôle is now abandoned. You are as safe here as in your Spanish convent. But the deck is too public for our revelations. We will seek the seclusion of the cabin, and there the complete tale shall be unfolded for your reassurance, with your father a witness to support it.”

She shook her head.

“I--I--know not what you mean.”

“To be sure,” he agreed. “But you soon shall.”

Peter, behind us, grunted to command Murray’s attention.

“Does der colonel walk or ride?”

“Stap me!” exclaimed my great-uncle, “I was forgetting your father’s present plight, mistress.”

“I feel like a fool!” snarled the Irishman.

“How unreasonable!” deplored Murray. “Have you not been acting the part of an _Outraged Parent_ who sacrificed all in defense of his daughter? My dear _chevalier_, what rôle could you select more heroical?”

“Give over your mummery,” protested O’Donnell. “I’ll not be made a mock of, sir!”

“Rightly spoken!” cried my great-uncle. “You shall not be, _chevalier_. Peter, good friend, prithee take three steps within the companionway and there deposit Colonel O’Donnell with decent propriety upon the two limbs Nature intended for his locomotion. Ah! Excellent! Allow me, mistress!”

Peter and I followed the three of them up the dark tunnel of the companionway.

“We are past one danger-mark, Peter,” I whispered. “What’s to come?”

“Trouble,” mumbled Peter.

“Trouble?”

“_Ja_. To get der treasure, I saidt dot was easy, Bob. But to divide der treasure--dot’s trouble. Andt now we got a woman on der ship--andt dot’s more trouble.”

Ben Gunn and the two negro lackeys ushered the party to their seats. Mistress O’Donnell sank into hers with a weariness that was pathetic. She was quite regardless of her surroundings. ’Twas as if she was become reconciled to whatever misfortune was in store for her. And she did not so much as glance at her father, who sat morosely upon Murray’s left hand across the table from her. Peter took his accustomed place at the opposite end, and I sat beside her.

“Let me give you a glass of this _aqua vitae_, my lass,” said my great-uncle. “’Tis efficacious for fatigue and the migraine. See, I taste it myself. ’Tis quite all right. You, too, _chevalier_? Excellent! Perhaps you will pass the flask to Master Corlaer yonder. You gentlemen should know each other after your recent intimate contact. And Master Ormerod yonder--my nephew. But I believe you and your daughter have had previous acquaintance with him.”

O’Donnell muttered something none too civil, but the maid bestirred herself, and her eyes examined me again with the mingling of horror and stupefaction which governed her mood.

“How come you here?” she asked. “You--you--are you also a pirate?”

“I am a captive as surely as yourself,” I returned. “Aye, more so.”

“A captive!” she exclaimed, her interest fanned alight. “But surely you----”

My great-uncle interrupted her.

“Please, Mistress O’Donnell! Our tale is sufficiently complicated. Let us not make it more difficult to comprehend by confusing it at the beginning with side-issues.”

“Gunn!”

“Yessir!”

The steward ducked and scraped.

“Give us whatever food you have prepared, swiftly. And fetch up some wines--port, burgundy, claret, madeira.”

“Yessir.”

Ben Gunn writhed himself into the companionway. Murray resumed his discourse to the Irish girl.

“First, that there may be no misunderstanding, mistress, ’tis true that I am he who is known as Captain Rip-Rap.”

She shrank away from him in a renewed access of terror.

“I have already told you that you have no cause to fear me,” he went on gently, “and to prove that to you I will add that I am an outlaw--what is called a pirate, although I detest the word myself--because I am a Jacobite. I believe, too, I may claim your father as my friend.”

He looked inquiringly at O’Donnell. The Irishman drained his glass.

“’Tis true,” he assented. “This gentleman is one Andrew Murray, who was out in the ’15 and was afterward in trouble in New York Province on the score of intrigues with our friends and the French, Moira. He hath been a good servant to King James.”

“But for why will you have been the death of all the poor folk on the _Santissima Trinidad_?” she cried. “And your men will be lifting the treasure that is Spain’s, and Spain a safe haven for the exiles the Hanoverian will not suffer to serve their rightful king and dwell in Britain!”

“’Tis regrettable that Spaniards had to die, lass,” answered my great-uncle, lowering his voice to a proper depth of emotion. “But I call to your mind that Spain has not helped the Good Cause as she might when there was a bonny chance of fetching the Stuarts home.”

“That is God’s truth,” she admitted with quick passion.

“Therefore,” pursued my great-uncle, “some of us have concerted it to seize a portion of Spain’s treasure and turn it to the purpose of winning back for King James his crown.”

“I am thinking ’tis not overhonest,” she said doubtfully.

“You are no more than a lass,” rebuked her father, emptying his second glass. “’Tis not for you to be saying what is honest and what is not honest in politics, of which you have no knowledge.”

“Indeed,” interposed my great-uncle, “the question as to what is honest and what is dishonest in politics is one upon which men have been unable to agree since the times of Aristotle.”

“Yet even politicians can not honestly confuse the dishonesty of taking one man’s gold for another man’s profit,” I put in.

Mistress O’Donnell gave me a sidewise look.

“We are speaking of kings, not of men,” my great-uncle pointed out.

“I am afraid I will be of Master Ormerod’s way of thinking,” said the Irish maid.

“You talk nonsense, Moira,” blustered her father. “Is it not better that this treasure should be employed to recover England and all the lands pertaining to the English crown for their rightful rulers--who will assist in the restoration of the True Faith--than that it should be poured into the pockets of the king’s favorites at Madrid? You are only a child, and ’tis not fitting for you to know all that goes on in the world; yet common sense, ordinary religious devotion and affection for your king might tell you so much. Why, lass, there are great lords, aye, a prince of the Church, no less, that set the seal of their approval to what we do.”

Moira O’Donnell hung her head.

“Sure, I am only an ignorant lass as you say, _padre_, one that knows no more than the sisters taught her in the convent; but there’s that in me cries out stronger than learning or creed or loyalty.”

Colonel O’Donnell hammered his fist upon the table-top--he had just drained a third glass.

“And this is the child of a race that have been pulled down from the high places of the land by the tyrant, and their heads and limbs strewn God knows where, and those who escaped death driven to poverty and exile! Girl, you know not what you say. The people of Spain will be thanking us for the use to which we turned their treasure--and then we’ll pay it back,” he added with a happy inspiration.

“Odds, that we will!” endorsed my great-uncle. “What’s a million and a half pounds to royal Spain? Aye, or to an England that waxes grandly prosperous under wise Stuart rule?”

“’Twill be the difference betwixt honor and dishonor,” I cried hotly. “As for prosperity, England was never richer, as any man who earns his living honestly would tell you. King George may be a Dutchman and talk with an accent and spend more time in Hanover than London; but he keeps his hands off trade, and that means wealth for all who’ll labor.”

Colonel O’Donnell favored me with a fishy glance.

“It seems we must both reckon with disloyalty in our families, Murray,” he remarked dryly.

“Never give it a thought, sir,” replied my great-uncle. “Tut, tut, _chevalier_, they are young and shall learn by experience. Let them argue it between themselves, eh? That should fetch them around.”

“I’ll not suffer any to call me disloyal!” exclaimed Moira. “I am all for the Stuarts; but I’d not have them resort to dishonest means to win what is their own.”

“Humph,” said my great-uncle. “To win their own, my lass, they must have money. If you will tell us where else in the wide world they are to obtain it, I’ll transship this treasure back aboard the _Santissima Trinidad_.”

She was silent.

His suave manner conveyed subtly an implication of the importance he attached to her approval.

“I would not inflict a dose of the material philosophy of age upon one so young and charming, my dear,” he went on; “but possibly you will forgive me if I indicate to you the regrettable circumstance that the ideal is seldom attainable? In other words, mistress, to obtain the greatest good for the greatest number of people it is occasionally necessary to inflict misery, suffering, even death, upon a lesser number. As in the present case, in order to secure the means for reëstablishing King James and what your father so quaintly terms the True Faith in the British Isles, it hath been necessary for a gentleman of questionable legal status--myself--associated with others of yet more dubious antecedents and repute, to procure the death of divers Spanish persons, who, of themselves, had never wrought any harm against us or the cause we served.

“Paradoxical, I must admit, involving an apparent denial of the essential elements of divine justice, and in an ordinary light a gross breach of the world’s laws and conventions. But ’tis by precisely such contraventions of precedent and lettered laws that epochal events are brought about. I trust my reasoning is clear?”

“Faith, sir,” she answered simply, “I think you will be poking fun at me.”

My great-uncle took snuff.

“I was never more serious,” he asserted.

O’Donnell emptied a fourth glass with an impatient growl that masked an oath.

“You are wasting time, Murray. Moira is a good lass, and my daughter; but what she thinks of this venture----”

“--is of considerable importance to me,” my great-uncle protested. “I was compelled in the beginning of our acquaintance to give her a wrong impression of my character, and I am extremely desirous to have her good opinion.”

“You’d better work on your nephew first,” the Irishman snapped.

“’Tis to earn his good opinion that I am so solicitous of her’s,” my extraordinary relative admitted serenely, and the shadow of a smile brightened her face.

“Troth, sir,” she retorted, “I am thinking that is the wisest thing you have said, for the young man appears to be the one of you that has a prejudice for the plain truth--I can say nothing for the large gentleman, since he has not opened his mouth.”

Murray laughed.

“I will take to myself some of the credit you heap upon my nephew,” he said. “As to the ‘large gentleman,’ ’tis his custom to be silent; eh, Peter?”

“_Ja_,” said Peter.

“But why is he--” she blushed a trifle--“why is Master Ormerod a captive? Why does he say I am a captive, if----”

“You are not a captive,” returned my great-uncle. “At least, I say that under the impression that, as your father’s daughter and a devout Jacobite, you would not, whatever your personal feelings might be, undertake to interfere with our plans.”

He waited, and after a pause she nodded her head.

“My grandnephew on the other hand,” he continued, “as well as the ‘large gentleman’ yonder, are not political sympathizers with us--not yet.”

“Nor will they ever be,” I corrected him.

“I shall beg leave to differ with you, Robert,” he replied. “Nevertheless, in justice to you, I will go on and acquaint Mistress O’Donnell that I carried you by force aboard my ship, Peter accompanying you of his own free will, for reasons which sufficiently commended themselves to me.”

“I am wondering are you all mad,” she said blankly.

“You may well say so!” I exclaimed. “The truth is this, mistress: Master Murray hath besides his own ship’s company a second band of pirates the which are restless beneath his thumb. He desired me to be his lieutenant to help him hold them in restraint, and----”

“You restrained them bravely aboard the _Santissima Trinidad_!” she said. “My faith, but I am caught in a network of lies!”

“Moira!” gurgled her father, sopping his cuff as he finished his fifth glass. “Ye talk like a--like a--” his brogue thickened--“a besom or what not at all. I’ll not have it! I’ll not have it, I say!”

“That was to save you!” I declared.

“Troth, and I’m saved,” she echoed sarcastically.

“Yes, you and your father,” said Murray gravely. “Colonel O’Donnell risked everything on this coup of ours. To protect him ’twas essential it should never be known he was privy to it. We had the choice of two means to that end. One was to sink the _Santissima Trinidad_ with all hands except yourselves----”

She cried out in expostulation and clapped her hands to her eyes as if to shut out the vision the words evoked.

“The other,” he continued, “was to arrange to remove the two of you in such fashion as to establish your innocence. I am free to say the first was the easiest course. The dictates of humanity, however, prevailed.”

How he rolled that last sentence!

“And what do you know of humanity that soaked the decks of the _Santissima Trinidad_ with blood?” she answered. “You that the Spaniards cite as a byword for cruelty and wickedness! I will not believe a word that you say. I will not believe any man here. You are all smirched with the same badness.”

“Blessed Virgin guard me!” whimpered O’Donnell. “And did any ever hear a daughter tell off her father the like of that? Glad I am the mother that bore ye----”

Peter leaned his great bulk forward upon the table.

“Don’t talk no more, you,” he commanded the Irishman. “_Neen_, I talk! Little gal, Bob andt I we don’t come wit’ Murray because we like to. He makes us. _Ja_! He uses us. He uses your fat’er. He uses you. But when we are wit’ him we do what we can to take care of you. It is not goodt for little gals to be on pirate ships. _Neen_!”

He leaned back.

“Dot’s all.”

Her blue eyes dwelt seriously upon his vast, flat face, with its insignificant features blobbed here and there.

“I believe _you_,” she said.

“Stap me,” jeered Murray. “Our Peter is discovered a squire o’ dames--a _preux chevalier_. Peter, you ha’ disguised your talents. We must know more of them.”

“_Ja_,” said Peter vacantly.

Mistress O’Donnell rose from her chair.

“Sir--” she addressed my great-uncle--“you will be excusing me if I do not linger for more conversation. What you do hath no concern with me. I am very distraught, and my heart is sick with the black sorrow, and I--I--” she swayed a little--“I would lie me down and--and--weep.”

I slipped from my seat and steadied her. Her father, opposite, blinked at us through maudlin tears.

“A sweet maid!” he hiccuped. “She’s all I ha’ left from following the Lost Cause. Curse the Hanoverian----”

“Take her to your stateroom, Robert,” said my great-uncle. “You must lodge with Peter.”

He rose, himself, bowing with the fine courtesy which became him nobly.

“What we can do to serve you, dear lass, that will we right gladly. In the mean time, do you rest and forget the nightmare scenes I would have spared you had I known how.”

I guided her as far as the stateroom door. She thanked me faintly as I opened it for her, and I was abruptly impelled to recover her friendship.

“What I tried to tell you was the truth,” I murmured, the words spilling fast from my tongue. “Indeed it was so! Peter Corlaer had the right of it. We two are no pirates, and all that we ha’ done has been intended to make smooth your way.”

There was a wistful light in her eyes as she lifted them under long, black lashes.

“God send you be honest, sir,” she said. “I--I must wait to judge. The world is gone all twirly-round. Even the _padre_----”

She choked back a sob.

“You will not misunderstand,” she ended with quiet dignity, “if I say no more that maybe already ha’ said too much.”