cy."

"But, sir..." one of them began.

"There is no more to be said, gentlemen. My name is Blood--Captain
Blood, if you please, of this ship the Cinco Llagas, taken as a prize of
war from Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez, who is my prisoner aboard.
You are to understand that I have turned the tables on more than the
Spaniards. There's the ladder. You'll find it more convenient than being
heaved over the side, which is what'll happen if you linger."

They went, though not without some hustling, regardless of the
bellowings of Colonel Bishop, whose monstrous rage was fanned by terror
at finding himself at the mercy of these men of whose cause to hate him
he was very fully conscious.

A half-dozen of them, apart from Jeremy Pitt, who was utterly
incapacitated for the present, possessed a superficial knowledge
of seamanship. Hagthorpe, although he had been a fighting officer,
untrained in navigation, knew how to handle a ship, and under his
directions they set about getting under way.

The anchor catted, and the mainsail unfurled, they stood out for the
open before a gentle breeze, without interference from the fort.

As they were running close to the headland east of the bay, Peter
Blood returned to the Colonel, who, under guard and panic-stricken, had
dejectedly resumed his seat on the coamings of the main batch.

"Can ye swim, Colonel?"

Colonel Bishop looked up. His great face was yellow and seemed in that
moment of a preternatural flabbiness; his beady eyes were beadier than
ever.

"As your doctor, now, I prescribe a swim to cool the excessive heat
of your humours." Blood delivered the explanation pleasantly, and,
receiving still no answer from the Colonel, continued: "It's a mercy for
you I'm not by nature as bloodthirsty as some of my friends here. And
it's the devil's own labour I've had to prevail upon them not to be
vindictive. I doubt if ye're worth the pains I've taken for you."

He was lying. He had no doubt at all. Had he followed his own wishes and
instincts, he would certainly have strung the Colonel up, and accounted
it a meritorious deed. It was the thought of Arabella Bishop that had
urged him to mercy, and had led him to oppose the natural vindictiveness
of his fellow-slaves until he had been in danger of precipitating a
mutiny. It was entirely to the fact that the Colonel was her uncle,
although he did not even begin to suspect such a cause, that he owed
such mercy as was now being shown him.