Give him to me. Let me have my way. You have your daughter, safe, unharmed, within the shelter of her lover's arms. The town is yours. You have won the fight. 'Twas I that did it. Without me your wives, your children, your subjects, would have been slaughtered in Caracas and this dog would have been free to go further afield for prey. He coveted your daughter--would fain make her his slave in some desert island. Give him to me!"

"Old man," said the Viceroy, "I take back my words. You have excuse for your betrayal, but your request I can not grant. I have promised him to Alvarado. Nay, urge me no further. My word is pa.s.sed."

"Thank you, thank you!" cried Morgan, breathing again.

"Silence, you dog!" said the Viceroy, with a look of contempt on his face. "But take heart, man," he added, as he saw the look of rage and disappointment sweep over the face of the old sailor, "he will not escape lightly. Would G.o.d he had blood enough in his body to pay drop by drop for all he hath shed. His death shall be slow, lingering, terrible. You have said it, and you shall see it, too, and you will. He shall have time to repent and to think upon the past. You may glut yourself with his suffering and feed fat your revenge. 'Twill be a meet, a fitting punishment so far as our poor minds can compa.s.s. We have already planned it."

"You Spanish hounds!" roared Morgan stoutly, "I am a subject of England.

I demand to be sent there for trial."

"You are an outlaw, sir, a man of no country, a foe to common humanity, and taken in your crimes. Silence, I say!" again cried the old man. "You pollute the air with your speech. Take him away and hold him safe.

To-morrow he shall be punished."

"Without a trial?" screamed the old buccaneer, struggling forward.

"Thou art tried already. Thou hast been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Alvarado, art ready for duty?"

"Ready, your Excellency," answered the young man, "and for this duty."

"Take him then, I give him into your hands. You know what is to be done; see you do it well."

"Ay, my lord. Into the strong-room with him, men!" ordered the young Spaniard, stepping unsteadily forward.

As he did so the crucifix he wore, which the disorder in his dress exposed to view, flashed into the light once more. Morgan's eyes fastened upon it for the first time.

"By heaven, sir!" he shouted. "Where got ye that cross?"

"From his mother, n.o.ble captain," interrupted Hornigold, coming closer.

He had another card to play. He had waited for this moment, and he threw back his head with a long, bitter laugh. There was such sinister, such vicious mockery and meaning in his voice, with not the faintest note of merriment to relieve it, that his listeners looked aghast upon him.

"His mother?" cried Morgan. "Then this is----"

He paused. The a.s.sembled cavaliers, Mercedes, and Alvarado stood with bated breath waiting for the terrible boatswain's answer.

"The boy I took into Cuchillo when we were at Panama," said Hornigold in triumph.

"And my son!" cried the old buccaneer with malignant joy.

A great cry of repudiation and horror burst from the lips of Alvarado.

The others stared with astonishment and incredulity written on their faces. Mercedes moved closer to her lover and strove to take his hand.

"My lords and gentlemen, hear me," continued the buccaneer, the words rushing from his lips in his excitement, for in the new relationship he so promptly and boldly affirmed, he thought he saw a way of escape from his imminent peril. "There lived in Maracaibo a Spanish woman, Maria Zerega, who loved me. By her there was a child--mine--a boy. I took them with me to Panama. The pestilence raged there after the sack. She fell ill, and as she lay dying besought me to save the boy. I sent Hornigold to her with instructions to do her will, and he carried the baby to the village of Cuchillo with that cross upon his breast and left him. We lost sight of him. There, the next day, you found him. He has English blood in his veins. He is my son, sirs, a n.o.ble youth," sneered the old man. "Now you have given me to him. 'Tis not meet that the father should suffer at the hands of the son. You shall set me free," added the man, turning to Alvarado.

"Rather than that--" cried Hornigold, viciously springing forward knife in hand.

He was greatly surprised at the bold yet cunning appeal of his former captain.

"Back, man!" interposed the Viceroy. "And were you a thousand times his father, were you my brother, my own father, you should, nevertheless, die, as it hath been appointed."

"Can this be true?" groaned Alvarado, turning savagely to Hornigold.

"I believe it to be."

"Why not kill me last night then?"

"I wanted you for this minute. 'Tis a small part of my revenge. To see him die and by his son's hand--A worthy father, n.o.ble son----"

"Silence!" shouted de Lara. "Art thou without bowels of compa.s.sion, man!

Alvarado, I pity thee, but this makes the promise of the hour void. Nay, my daughter"--as Mercedes came forward to entreat him--"I'd rather slay thee with my own hand than wed thee to the son of such as yon!"

"My lord, 'tis just," answered Alvarado. His anguish was pitiful to behold. "I am as innocent of my parentage as any child, yet the suffering must be mine. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children. I did deem it yesterday a coward's act to cut the thread of my life but now--I cannot survive--I cannot live--and know that in my veins--runs the blood of such a monster. My lord, you have been good to me. Gentlemen, you have honored me. Mercedes, you have loved me--O G.o.d!

You, infamous man, you have fathered me. May the curse of G.o.d, that G.o.d whom you mock, rest upon you! My mother loved this man once, it seems.

Well, n.o.bly did she expiate. I go to join her. Pray for me. Stay not my hand. Farewell!"

He raised his poniard.

"Let no one stop him," cried the old Viceroy as Alvarado darted the weapon straight at his own heart. "This were the best end."

Mercedes had stood dazed during this conversation, but with a shriek of horror, as she saw the flash of the blade, she threw herself upon her lover, and strove to wrench the dagger from him.

"Alvarado!" she cried, "whatever thou art, thou hast my heart! Nay, slay me first, if thou wilt."

CHAPTER XXIII

HOW THE GOOD PRIEST FRA ANTONIO DE LAS CASAS TOLD THE TRUTH, TO THE GREAT RELIEF OF CAPTAIN ALVARADO AND DONNA MERCEDES, AND THE DISCOMFITURE OF MASTER BENJAMIN HORNIGOLD AND SIR HENRY MORGAN

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Ay, strike, Alvarado," cried the Viceroy, filled with shame and surprise at the sight of his daughter's extraordinary boldness, "for though I love her, I'd rather see her dead than married to the son of such as he. Drive home your weapon!" he cried in bitter scorn. "Why stay your hand? Only blood can wash out the shame she hath put upon me before you all this day. Thou hast a dagger. Use it, I say!"

"Do you hear my father's words, Alvarado?" cried Mercedes sinking on her knees and stretching up her hands to him. "'Tis a sharp weapon. One touch will end it all, and you can follow."

"G.o.d help me!" cried the unhappy young Captain, throwing aside the poniard and clasping his hands to his eyes. "I cannot! Hath no one here a point for me? If I have deserved well of you or the State, sir, bid them strike home."

"Live, young sir," interrupted Morgan, "there are other women in the world. Come with me and----"

"If you are my father, you have but little time in this world,"

interrupted the Spaniard, turning to Morgan and gnashing his teeth at him. "I doubt not but you were cruel to my mother. I hate you! I loathe you! I despise you for all your crimes! And most of all for bringing me into the world. I swear to you, had I the power, I'd not add another moment to your life. The world were better rid of you."

"You have been well trained by your Spanish nurses," cried Morgan resolutely, although with sneering mockery and hate in his voice, "and well you seem to know the duty owed by son to sire."

"You have done nothing for me," returned the young soldier, "you abandoned me. Such as you are you were my father. You cast me away to shift for myself. Had it not been for these friends here----"

"Nay," said Morgan, "I thought you dead. That cursed one-eyed traitor there told me so, else I'd sought you out."