“If I know aught of my fellow-men,” continues the Don, surely and slow, “that grasping steward will not yield up his trust before he has made searching enquiry into Moll’s claim, act she her part never so well.  We cannot refuse to give him the name of the ship that brought us home, and, learning that we embarked at Alicante, jealous suspicion may lead him to seek further information there; with what result?”

“Why, we may be blown with a vengeance, if he come ferreting so nigh as that,” says Dawson, “and we are like to rot in gaol for our pains.”

“You may choose to run that risk; I will not,” says the Don.

“Nor I either,” says Dawson, “and God forgive me for overlooking such a peril to my Moll.  But, do tell me plainly, Senor, granting these pirates be the most honest thieves in the world, is there no other risk to fear?”

The Don hunched his shoulders.

“Life itself is a game,” says he, “in which the meanest stroke may not be won without some risk; but, played as I direct, the odds are in our favour.  Picked up at sea from an Algerine boat, who shall deny our story when the evidence against us lies there” (laying his hand out towards the south), “where no man in England dare venture to seek it?”

“Why, to be sure,” says Dawson; “that way all hangs together to a nicety.  For only a wizard could dream of coming hither for our undoing.”

“For the rest,” continues the Don, thoughtfully, “there is little to fear.  Judith Godwin has eyes the colour of Moll’s, and in all else Simon must expect to find a change since he last saw his master’s daughter.  They were in Italy three years.  That would make Judith a lisping child when she left England.  He must look to find her altered.  Why,” adds he, in a more gentle voice, as if moved by some inner feeling of affection and admiration, nodding towards Moll, “see how she has changed in this little while.  I should not know her for the raw, half-starved spindle of a thing she was when I saw her first playing in the barn at Tottenham Cross.”

Looking at her now (browsing the goats amongst my most cherished herbs), I was struck also by this fact, which, living with her day by day, had slipped my observation somewhat.  She was no longer a gaunt, ungainly child, but a young woman, well proportioned, with a rounded cheek and chin, brown tinted by the sun, and, to my mind, more beautiful than any of their vaunted Moorish women.  But, indeed, in this country all things do mature quickly; and ’twas less surprising in her case because her growth had been checked before by privation and hardship, whereas since our coming hither it had been aided by easy circumstances and good living.

CHAPTER XIV.

Of our coming to London (with incidents by the way), and of the great address whereby Moll confounds Simon, the steward.