RECITATIVE: All is prepared
MABEL: All is prepared, your gallant crew await you. 
My Frederic in tears? It cannot be 
That lion-heart quails at the coming conflict?

FREDERIC: No, Mabel, no. 
A terrible disclosure 
Has just been made. 
Mabel, my dearly-loved one, 
I bound myself to serve the pirate captain 
Until I reached my one-and-twentieth birthday--
MABEL: But you are twenty-one?
FREDERIC: I've just discovered 
That I was born in leap-year, and that birthday 
Will not be reached by me till nineteen forty!
MABEL: Oh, horrible! catastrophe appalling!
FREDERIC: And so, farewell!
MABEL: No, no! 
Ah, Frederic, hear me.