de Guzman's place."

"Well, well," continued the old man, "when we have restored order in the
town we shall have a wedding ceremony--say to-morrow."

"Ay, ay, to-morrow, to-morrow!" cried the cavaliers.

"Your Excellency, there is one more thing yet to be done," said Alvarado
as soon as he could be heard.

"Art ever making objections, Captain Alvarado--Don Francisco, that is.
We might think you had reluctance to the bridal," exclaimed the Viceroy
in some little surprise. "What is it now?"

"The punishment of this man."

"I gave him into your hands."

"By God!" shouted old Hornigold, "I wondered if in all this fathering
and mothering and sweethearting and giving in marriage he had
forgot----"

"Not so. The postponement but makes it deeper," answered Alvarado
gravely. "Rest satisfied."

"And I shall have my revenge in full measure?"

"In full, in overflowing measure, senor."

"Do you propose to shoot me?" asked the buccaneer chieftain coolly. "Or
behead me?"

"That were a death for an honorable soldier taken in arms and forced to
bide the consequences of his defeat. It is not meet for you," answered
Alvarado.

"What then? You'll not hang me? Me! A knight of England! Sometime
Governor of Jamaica!"

"These titles are nothing to me. And hanging is the death we visit upon
the common criminal, a man who murders or steals, or blasphemes. Your
following may expect that. For you there is----"

"You don't mean to burn me alive, do you?"

"Were you simply a heretic that might be meet, but you are worse----"

"What do you mean?" cried the buccaneer, carried away by the
cold-blooded menace in Alvarado's words. "Neither lead, nor steel, nor
rope, nor fire!"

"Neither one nor the other, sir."

"Is it the wheel? The rack? The thumbscrew? Sink me, ye shall see how an
Englishman can die! Even from these I flinch not."

"Nor need you, from these, for none of them shall be used," continued
the young soldier, with such calculating ferocity in his voice that in
spite of his dauntless courage and intrepidity the blood of Morgan froze
within his veins.

"Death and destruction!" he shouted. "What is there left?"

"You shall die, senor, not so much by the hand of man as by the act of
God."

"God! I believe in none. There is no God!"

"That you shall see."

"Your Excellency, my lords! I appeal to you to save me from this man,
not my son but my nephew----"

"S'death, sirrah!" shouted the Viceroy, enraged beyond