‘Unless they were carried away by an attack of common sense.’ Mathias paused for a moment before asking: ‘And the other children have dropped, as yet, no hint as to what precisely did happen to him?’ ‘None.’ ‘Their mother has questioned them?’ ‘Exhaustively.’ ‘Yet they must surely know.’ ‘It is a great pity,’ said Thornton, deliberately, ‘that when the pirates decided to kill the child, they did not invite in his sisters to watch.’ Mathias was ready to make allowances. He merely shifted his position and cleared his voice. ‘Unless we can get definite evidence of murder, either of your boy or the Dutch captain, I am afraid there is a very real danger of these men escaping with their lives: though they would of course be transported.--It’s all highly unsatisfactory, Thornton,’ he went on confidentially. ‘We do not, as lawyers, like aiming at a conviction for piracy alone. It is too vague. The most eminent jurists have not even yet decided on a satisfactory definition of piracy. I doubt, now, if they ever will. One school holds that it is any felony committed on the High Seas. But that does little except render a separate term otiose. Moreover, it is not accepted by other schools of thought.’ ‘To the layman, at least, it would seem to be a queer sort of piracy to commit suicide in one’s cabin, or perform an illegal operation on the captain’s daughter!’ ‘Well, you see the difficulties. Consequently we always prefer to make use of it simply as a make-weight with another more serious charge. Captain Kidd, for instance, was not, strictly speaking, hanged for piracy. The first count in his indictment, on which he was condemned, sets forth that he feloniously, intentionally, and with malice aforethought hit his own gunner on the head with a wooden bucket value eightpence. That is something definite. What _we_ need is something definite. We have not got it. Take the second case, the piracy of the Dutch steamer. We are in the same difficulty there: a man is taken on board the schooner, he disappears. What happened? We can only surmise.’ ‘Isn’t there such a thing as turning King’s Evidence?’ ‘Another most unsatisfactory proceeding, to which I should be loath to have recourse. No, the natural and proper witnesses are the children. There is a kind of beauty in making them, who have suffered so much at these men’s hands, the instruments of justice upon them.’ Mathias paused, and looked at Thornton narrowly. ‘You haven’t been able, in all these weeks, to get the smallest hint from them with regard to the death of Captain Vandervoort either?’ ‘None.’ ‘Well, is it your impression that they do truly know nothing, or that they have been terrorised into hiding something?’ Thornton gave a gentle sigh, almost of relief. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think they have been terrorised. But I do think they may know something they won’t tell.’ ‘But why?’