captors, but neither monk nor captain were at hand.

"Try the cabin," said one, and we made our way to the cabin under the
poop, where Nunez was used to sit. But the door was fast, and we had to
break it down. As the first man rushed in he fell back dead, with a
sword-thrust through his heart from Nunez, while the second dropped with
a dagger-wound in his throat. But ere he could strike again Pharaoh
Nanjulian had seized him by the neck, and Captain Manuel Nunez was
dragged into the light, dispossessed of his weapons and bound securely.
I stood and looked at him, and suddenly the fierce scowl of hate and
rage cleared away from his features, and the old mocking, cold smile
began to play about the corners of his eyes and mouth again.

"The fortunes of war, Master Salkeld," said he. "Yesterday you were down
and I was up. To-day you are up and I am down. 'Tis fate."

But I had no time to talk with him then, for I was anxious to find Frey
Bartolomeo. Therefore Pharaoh and I left Nunez with the officer and
began searching the ship high and low. Because on first coming aboard
her we had been straightway conducted to the oars we knew next to
nothing of the Santa Filomena, and were accordingly some time in getting
our bearings. Nevertheless we could find no trace of the monk, who
seemed to have vanished into thin air, or to have gone overboard during
the fight. He was not to be found either in cockpit or cabin, forecastle
or lazaretto, and at last we stared blankly in each other's faces and
wondered what had become of him.

"There is one place we have not yet tried," said Pharaoh, "and that is
the powder magazine. Maybe he has retreated there."

We fetched a Spaniard from the upper deck and obliged him to conduct us
to the magazine, and there, sure enough, was Frey Bartolomeo, calm and
impassive as ever. He had stove in the head of one barrel of gunpowder,
and now stood over the powder holding a lighted candle in his hand. As
we burst in the door and confronted him, he raised his pale face and
regarded us with calmness and scorn.

"Lay but a finger on me, ye Lutheran dogs," he said, "and I will drop
this light into the powder and send your souls to perdition!"

The men with us started back, dismayed and affrighted by his grim looks
and determined words. But Pharaoh Nanjulian laughed.

"Your own soul will go with ours, friar," said he.

Frey Bartolomeo shot a fierce glance at him from under his cowl.

"Fool!" he said.