Mr. Blood resumed: "ye'll please to understand that I must, Colonel,
darling. Ye've worked a deal of wickedness and cruelty in your time, and
I want this to be a lesson to you, a lesson that ye'll remember--for
the sake of others who may come after us. There's Jeremy up there in the
round-house with a back that's every colour of the rainbow; and the poor
lad'll not be himself again for a month. And if it hadn't been for the
Spaniards maybe it's dead he'd be by now, and maybe myself with him."

Hagthorpe lounged forward. He was a fairly tall, vigorous man with a
clear-cut, attractive face which in itself announced his breeding.

"Why will you be wasting words on the hog?" wondered that sometime
officer in the Royal Navy. "Fling him overboard and have done with him."

The Colonel's eyes bulged in his head. "What the devil do you mean?" he
blustered.

"It's the lucky man ye are entirely, Colonel, though ye don't guess the
source of your good fortune."

And now another intervened--the brawny, one-eyed Wolverstone, less
mercifully disposed than his more gentlemanly fellow-convict.

"String him up from the yardarm," he cried, his deep voice harsh and
angry, and more than one of the slaves standing to their arms made echo.

Colonel Bishop trembled. Mr. Blood turned. He was quite calm.

"If you please, Wolverstone," said he, "I conduct affairs in my own way.
That is the pact. You'll please to remember it." His eyes looked along
the ranks, making it plain that he addressed them all. "I desire that
Colonel Bishop should have his life. One reason is that I require him as
a hostage. If ye insist on hanging him, ye'll have to hang me with him,
or in the alternative I'll go ashore."

He paused. There was no answer. But they stood hang-dog and
half-mutinous before him, save Hagthorpe, who shrugged and smiled
wearily.

Mr. Blood resumed: "Ye'll please to understand that aboard a ship there
is one captain. So." He swung again to the startled Colonel. "Though
I promise you your life, I must--as you've heard--keep you aboard as a
hostage for the good behaviour of Governor Steed and what's left of the
fort until we put to sea."

"Until you..." Horror prevented Colonel Bishop from echoing the
remainder of that incredible speech.

"Just so," said Peter Blood, and he turned to the officers who had
accompanied the Colonel. "The boat is waiting, gentlemen. You'll have
heard what I said. Convey it with my compliments to his excellen