Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

’

�And who, sir, may I make bold to ask, are those gentlemen riding along the beach in fashion so lively?’

Henry looked quickly at the group of horsemen galloping along the sand, unceremoniously took the binoculars from the skipper’s hand, and gazed through them.

�It’s the Jefe himself in the lead,’ he reported to Leoncia and her menfolk, �with a bunch of gendarmes.’ He uttered a sharp exclamation, stared through the glasses intently, then shook his head. �Almost I thought I made out our friend Torres.

’

�With our enemies!’ Leoncia cried incredulously, remembering Torres’ proposal of marriage and proffer of service and honor that very day on the hacienda piazza.

�I must have been mistaken,’ Francis acknowledged. �They are riding so bunched together. But it’s the Jefe all right, two jumps ahead of the outfit.’

�Who is this Torres duck?’ Henry asked harshly. �I’ve never liked his looks from the first, yet he seems always welcome under your roof, Leoncia.

’

�I beg jour parson, sir, most gratifiedly, and with my humilious respects,’ Captain Trefethen interrupted suavely. �But I must call your attention to the previous question, sir, which is: who and what is that cavalcade disporting itself with such earnestness along the sand?’

�They tried to hang me yesterday,’ Francis laughed. �And to-morrow they were going to hang my kinsman there. Only we beat them to it. And here we are. Now, Mr. Skipper, I call your attention to your head-sheets flapping in the wind.

You are standing still. How much longer do you expect to stick around here?’

�Mr. Morgan, sir,’ came the answer, �it is with dumbfounded respect that I serve you as the charterer of my vessel. Nevertheless, I must inform you that I am a British subject. King George is my king, sir, and I owe obedience first of all to him and to his laws of maritime between all nations, sir. It is lucid to my comprehension that you have broken laws ashore, or else the officers ashore would not be so assiduously in quest of you, sir.

And it is also lucid to clarification that it is now your wish to have me break the laws of maritime by enabling you to escape. So, in honor bound, I must stick around here until this little difficulty that you may have appertained ashore is adjusted to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, sir, and to the satisfaction of my lawful sovereign.