pious son of
Mother Church, and he will wipe out a score or two of sins by
presenting the stake with two English heretics."

After that I thought again for a time.

"Pharaoh," I said at last, "we will not die very willingly. I have a
good deal to live for. There is my sweetheart and my uncle to go back
to, and also I have an account to settle with Jasper Stapleton. I will
make an effort to do all this before my time comes."

"I am with you, master," said he.

"Have you thought of anything?" I asked.

"Nothing, but that we must escape," he answered.

"Could we manage that after the ship reaches Vera Cruz?"

"No, for a surety. We shall be watched as cats watch mice. If we ever
set foot on a quay-side in that accursed port, master, we are dead men.
God help us! I know what the mercies of these Spaniards are. I stood in
the City of Mexico and saw two Englishmen burnt. That was ten years
ago. But more of that anon. Let us see to the present. We are dead men,
I say, if we set foot in Vera Cruz, or any port of that cruel region."

"Then there is but one thing for us," I said.

"And that, master?"

"We must leave this ship before she drops anchor."

"That is a good notion," said he, "a right good notion; but the thing
is, how to do it?"

"Could we not take one of the boats some night, and get away in it?"

"Aye, but there are many things to consider. We should have to victual
it, and then we might run short, for we should have no compass, and no
notion, or very little, of our direction. We might starve to death, or
die of thirst."

"I had as soon die of thirst or hunger, as of fire and torture."

"Marry, and so would I. Yea, it were better to die here on the wide
ocean than in the market-place of Mexico or Vera Cruz."

"Let us try it, Pharaoh. Devise some plan. I will not fail to help if I
can be of any use."

"I will think," he said; "I will think till I find a means of escape. I
reckon that we have still a month before us. It shall go hard if our
English brains cannot devise some method whereby we may outwit these
Spanish devils."

So we began to plot and plan, spurred on by the knowledge of what
awaited us in Mexico.

CHAPTER VII.

WE ESCAPE THE SPANIARDS.

Now that I knew his real sentiments towards me, it was very difficult to
preserve my composure and indifference in the presence of Captain Manuel
Nunez. As I sat at table with him, or talked with him on deck or in his
cabin, I had hard