the hands of Captain Blood had driven the Admiral
all but mad. It is impossible, if we impose our minds impartially,
to withhold a certain sympathy from Don Miguel. Hate was now this
unfortunate man's daily bread, and the hope of vengeance an obsession to
his mind. As a madman he went raging up and down the Caribbean seeking
his enemy, and in the meantime, as an hors d'oeuvre to his vindictive
appetite, he fell upon any ship of England or of France that loomed
above his horizon.

I need say no more to convey the fact that this illustrious sea-captain
and great gentleman of Castile had lost his head, and was become a
pirate in his turn. The Supreme Council of Castile might anon condemn
him for his practices. But how should that matter to one who already was
condemned beyond redemption? On the contrary, if he should live to lay
the audacious and ineffable Blood by the heels, it was possible that
Spain might view his present irregularities and earlier losses with a
more lenient eye.

And so, reckless of the fact that Captain Blood was now in vastly
superior strength, the Spaniard sought him up and down the trackless
seas. But for a whole year he sought him vainly. The circumstances in
which eventually they met are very curious.

An intelligent observation of the facts of human existence will reveal
to shallow-minded folk who sneer at the use of coincidence in the arts
of fiction and drama that life itself is little more than a series of
coincidences. Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will,
and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that
the merest chance might have averted. Indeed, coincidence may be defined
as the very tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations.

Observe it now at work in the affairs of Captain Blood and of some
others.

On the 15th September of the year 1688--a memorable year in the annals
of England--three ships were afloat upon the Caribbean, which in their
coming conjunctions were to work out the fortunes of several persons.

The first of these was Captain Blood's flagship the Arabella, which had
been separated from the buccaneer fleet in a hurricane off the Lesser
Antilles. In somewhere about 17 deg. N. Lat., and 74 deg. Long., she
was beating up for the Windward Passage, before the intermittent
southeasterly breezes of that stifling season, homing for Tortuga, the
natural rendezvous of the dispersed vessels.

The second ship was the