'You say so, and it may be so,' rejoined Blackbeard, 'but at any rate
you are only a social one.'

'If even that is allowed,' answered Elvira, 'you must own that it
legally puts me in your mother's place.'

'By the bones of Captain Kid, it sounds well and appropriate for you, to
talk about legality,' replied Blackbeard, ironically, 'you, who hast
been born and bred amongst those, who acknowledge no laws, except those
of their own making. Go to, you're an idiot.'

'But I am not a murderess,' replied Elvira.

'That is more than I could swear for,' said Blackbeard.

'At least I never killed my sister,' rejoined Elvira.

'What do you mean to insinuate by that?' asked the Pirate as his
muscular frame trembled with a sort of indefinable emotion.

'I mean,' replied Elvira earnestly, 'not only to insinuate, but to
solemnly assert, that, that unfortunate girl, who now lies bleeding
before your eyes, is your only sister.'

'What!' exclaimed Blackbeard, driven by these singular words almost to
frenzy, 'Witch of Bedlam, thou liest.'

A low, faint moan, here escaped from the lips of the wounded girl, which
caused Elvira, thus to address the pirate: