gentle landward breeze he beheld a
great ship on their starboard bow, that he conceived to be some three or
four miles off, and--as well as he could judge her at that distance--of
a tonnage equal if not superior to their own. Even as he watched her
she altered her course, and going about came heading towards them,
close-hauled.

A dozen of his fellows were astir on the forecastle, looking eagerly
ahead, and the sound of their voices and laughter reached him across the
length of the stately Cinco Llagas.

"There," said a soft voice behind him in liquid Spanish, "is the
Promised Land, Don Pedro."

It was something in that voice, a muffled note of exultation, that
awoke suspicion in him, and made whole the half-doubt he had been
entertaining. He turned sharply to face Don Diego, so sharply that the
sly smile was not effaced from the Spaniard's countenance before Captain
Blood's eyes had flashed upon it.

"You find an odd satisfaction in the sight of it--all things
considered," said Mr. Blood.

"Of course." The Spaniard rubbed his hands, and Mr. Blood observed that
they were unsteady. "The satisfaction of a mariner."

"Or of a traitor--which?" Blood asked him quietly. And as the Spaniard
fell back before him with suddenly altered countenance that confirmed
his every suspicion, he flung an arm out in the direction of the distant
shore. "What land is that?" he demanded. "Will you have the effrontery
to tell me that is the coast of Curacao?"

He advanced upon Don Diego suddenly, and Don Diego, step by step, fell
back. "Shall I tell you what land it is? Shall I?" His fierce assumption
of knowledge seemed to dazzle and daze the Spaniard. For still Don Diego
made no answer. And then Captain Blood drew a bow at a venture--or
not quite at a venture. Such a coast-line as that, if not of the main
itself, and the main he knew it could not be, must belong to either Cuba
or Hispaniola. Now knowing Cuba to lie farther north and west of the
two, it followed, he reasoned swiftly, that if Don Diego meant betrayal
he would steer for the nearer of these Spanish territories. "That land,
you treacherous, forsworn Spanish dog, is the island of Hispaniola."

Having said it, he closely watched the swarthy face now overspread with
pallor, to see the truth or falsehood of his guess reflected there. But
now the retreating Spaniard had come to the middle of the quarter-deck,
where the mizzen sail made a screen to shut them off from the eyes o