’To part me from the man to whom I have given my heart.  That you cannot do.  Gomez, why do you not speak?  Tell him, tell him!’ cried Lesbia, with a voice strangled by sobs; ’tell him that I am to be your wife to-morrow, at Havre.  Your wife!’

‘Dear Lady Lesbia, that cannot be,’ said Lord Hartfield, sorrowfully, pitying her in her helplessness, as he might have pitied a young bird in the fowler’s net.  ’I am assured upon undeniable authority that Senor Montesma has a wife living at Cuba; and even were this not so—­were he free to marry you—­his character and antecedents would for ever forbid such a marriage.’

‘A wife!  No, no, no!’ shrieked Lesbia, looking wildly from one to the other.  ’It is a lie—­a lie, invented by my brother, who always hated me—­by you, who fooled and deceived me!  It is a lie, an infamous invention!  Don Gomez, speak to them:  for pity’s sake answer them!  Don’t you see that they are driving me mad?’

She flung herself into his arms, she buried her dishevelled head upon his breast; she clung to him with hands that writhed convulsively in her agony.

Maulevrier sprang across the cabin and wrenched her from her lover’s grasp.

‘You shall not pollute her with your touch,’ he cried; ’you have poisoned her mind already.  Scoundrel, seducer, slave-dealer!  Do you hear, Lesbia?  Shall I tell you what this man is—­what trade he followed yonder, on his native island—­this Spanish hidalgo—­this all-accomplished gentleman—­lineal descendant of the Cid—­fine flower of Andalusian chivalry?  It was not enough for him to cheat at cards, to float bubble companies, bogus lotteries.  His profligate extravagance, his love of sybarite luxury, required a larger resource than the petty schemes which enrich smaller men.  A slave ship, which could earn nearly twenty thousand pounds on every voyage, and which could make two runs in a year—­that was the trade for Don Gomez de Montesma, and he carried it on merrily for six or seven years, till the British cruisers got too keen for him, and the good old game was played out.  You see that scar upon the hilalgo’s forehead, Lesbia—­a token of knightly prowess, you think, perhaps.  No, my girl, that is the mark of an English cutlass in a scuffle on board a slaver.  A merry trade, Lesbia—­the living cargo stowed close under hatches have rather a bad time of it now and then—­short rations of food and water, yellow Jack.  They die like rotten sheep sometimes—­bad then for the dealer.  But if he can land the bulk of his human wares safe and sound the profits are enormous.  The Captain-General takes his capitation fee, the blackies are drafted off to the sugar plantations, and everybody is satisfied; but I think, Lesbia, that your British prejudices would go against marriage with a slave-trader, were he ever so free to make you his wife, which this particular dealer in blackamoors is not.’

‘Is this true, this part of their vile story?’ demanded Lesbia, looking at her lover, who stood apart from them all now, his arms folded, his face deadly pale, the lower lip quivering under the grinding of his strong white teeth.