human
This has been a strange business.
gpt
It has, sir.
human
I am now in command here, as I suppose you know?
gpt
I didn't know, sir; but you're the one to take command, surely, now the captain's dead and gone.
human
Yes, but it is a command I do not desire. I shall want a mate, some man to stand watch and watch with me. Did you hear Don Christoval tell me just now what happened ashore?
gpt
Yes, sir. His yarn was pretty near the truth; not quite, though.
human
Where, said I,
gpt
The lady was insensible when him and the other Spanish gent brought her downstairs. It's true that her father and the young gentleman, her brother, bust from us when they see her being carried through the hall, but it is not true that she got them scratches upon her shoulder _then_. She was bleeding when the two Spaniards came along down the stairs with her. I took notice of them marks, and so did Tubb and Butler.
human
Did her father, Captain Noble, say anything during the time you were guarding him--while you, or whoever else it was, stood watch over him?
gpt
Ay, a deal more than my memory carries, sir. Yet it was nothing but calling names--nothing in the way of explaining matters. It was '_The infernal villain!--The brutal wretch!--Who are these scoundrels?--Are you pirates, you ruffians?--You speak English; you are English; will you help these two Spaniards, English as I reckon you to be, to kidnap an Englishwoman from her father's home in England?_' But if that had been all! Butler, he flourished his cutlass and threatened to give the old gent a tap over the head if he didn't belay his jaw. Pirates we _wasn't_! We was ashore helping a gentleman to his rights. Captain Dopping told us that the law was on our side, and there's ne'er a pirate as can say _that_ of his calling.