He laid his hand on the breech of the gun that bore Don Diego.
“Understand this clearly: to the first shot from the Encarnacion this gun will fire the answer. I make myself clear, I hope?”
White-faced and trembling, young Espinosa stared into the pitiless blue eyes that so steadily regarded him.
“If it is clear?” he faltered, breaking the utter silence in which all were standing. “But, name of God, how should it be clear? How should I understand? Can you avert the fight? If you know a way, and if I, or these, can help you to it—if that is what you mean—in Heaven’s name let me hear it.”
“A fight would be averted if Don Diego de Espinosa were to go aboard his brother’s ship, and by his presence and assurances inform the Admiral that all is well with the Cinco Llagas, that she is indeed still a ship of Spain as her flag now announces. But of course Don Diego cannot go in person, because he is…otherwise engaged. He has a slight touch of fever—shall we say?—that detains him in his cabin. But you, his son, may convey all this and some other matters together with his homage to your uncle. You shall go in a boat manned by six of these Spanish prisoners, and I—a distinguished Spaniard delivered from captivity in Barbados by your recent raid—will accompany you to keep you in countenance. If I return alive, and without accident of any kind to hinder our free sailing hence, Don Diego shall have his life, as shall every one of you. But if there is the least misadventure, be it from treachery or ill-fortune—I care not which—the battle, as I have had the honour to explain, will be opened on our side by this gun, and your father will be the first victim of the conflict.”
He paused a moment. There was a hum of approval from his comrades, an anxious stirring among the Spanish prisoners. Young Espinosa stood before him, the colour ebbing and flowing in his cheeks. He waited for some direction from his father. But none came. Don Diego’s courage, it seemed, had sadly waned under that rude test. He hung limply in his fearful bonds, and was silent. Evidently he dared not encourage his son to defiance, and presumably was ashamed to urge him to yield. Thus, he left decision entirely with the youth.
“Come,” said Blood. “I have been clear enough, I think. What do you say?”
Don Esteban moistened his parched lips, and with the back of his hand mopped the anguish-sweat from his brow. His eyes gazed wildly a moment upon the shoulders of his father, as if beseeching guidance. But his father remained silent. Something like a sob escaped the boy.
“I…I accept,” he answered at last, and swung to the Spaniards. “And you—you will accept too,” he insisted passionately. “For Don Diego’s sake and for your own—for all our sakes. If you do not, this man will butcher us all without mercy.”
Since he yielded, and their leader himself counselled no resistance, why should they encompass their own destruction by a gesture of futile heroism? They answered without much hesitation that they would do as was required of them.
Blood turned, and advanced to Don Diego.
“I am sorry to inconvenience you in this fashion, but…” For a second he checked and frowned as his eyes intently observed the prisoner. Then, after that scarcely perceptible pause, he continued, “but I do not think that you have anything beyond this inconvenience to apprehend, and you may depend upon me to shorten it as far as possible.” Don Diego made him no answer.
Peter Blood waited a moment, observing him; then he bowed and stepped back.
CHAPTER XII
DON PEDRO SANGRE
The Cinco Llagas and the Encarnacion, after a proper exchange of signals, lay hove to within a quarter of a mile of each other, and across the intervening space of gently heaving, sunlit waters sped a boat from the former, manned by six Spanish seamen and bearing in her stern sheets Don Esteban de Espinosa and Captain Peter Blood.
She also bore two treasure-chests containing fifty thousand pieces of eight. Gold has at all times been considered the best of testimonies of good faith, and Blood was determined that in all respects appearances should be entirely on his side. His followers had accounted this a supererogation of pretence. But Blood’s will in the matter had prevailed. He carried further a bulky package addressed to a grande of Spain, heavily sealed with the arms of Espinosa—another piece of evidence hastily manufactured in the cabin of the Cinco Llagas—and he was spending these last moments in completing his instructions to his young companion.
Don Esteban expressed his last lingering uneasiness:
“But if you should betray yourself?” he cried.
“It will be unfortunate for everybody. I advised your father to say a prayer for our success. I depend upon you to help me more materially.”
“I will do my best. God knows I will do my best,” the boy protested.
Blood nodded thoughtfully, and no more was said until they bumped alongside the towering mass of the Encarnadon. Up the ladder went Don Esteban closely followed by Captain Blood. In the waist stood the Admiral himself to receive them, a handsome, self-sufficient man, very tall and stiff, a little older and greyer than Don Diego, whom he closely resembled. He was supported by four officers and a friar in the black and white habit of St. Dominic.
Don Miguel opened his arms to his nephew, whose lingering panic he mistook for pleasurable excitement, and having enfolded him to his bosom turned to greet Don Esteban’s companion.
Peter Blood bowed gracefully, entirely at his ease, so far as might be judged from appearances.
“I am,” he announced, making a literal translation of his name, “Don Pedro Sangre, an unfortunate gentleman of Leon, lately delivered from captivity by Don Esteban’s most gallant father.” And in a few words he sketched the imagined conditions of his capture by, and deliverance from, those accursed heretics who held the island of Barbados. “Benedicamus Domino,” said the friar to his tale.
“Ex hoc nunc et usque in seculum,” replied Blood, the occasional papist, with lowered eyes.
The Admiral and his attending officers gave him a sympathetic hearing and a cordial welcome. Then came the dreaded question.
“But where is my brother? Why has he not come, himself, to greet me?”
It was young Espinosa who answered this:
“My father is afflicted at denying himself that honour and pleasure. But unfortunately, sir uncle, he is a little indisposed—oh, nothing grave; merely sufficient to make him keep his cabin. It is a little fever, the result of a slight wound taken in the recent raid upon Barbados, which resulted in this gentleman’s happy deliverance.”
“Nay, nephew, nay,” Don Miguel protested with ironic repudiation. “I can have no knowledge of these things. I have the honour to represent upon the seas His Catholic Majesty, who is at peace with the King of England. Already you have told me more than it is good for me to know. I will endeavour to forget it, and I will ask you, sirs,” he added, glancing at his officers, “to forget it also.” But he winked into the twinkling eyes of Captain Blood; then added matter that at once extinguished that twinkle. “But since Diego cannot come to me, why, I will go across to him.”
For a moment Don Esteban’s face was a mask of pallid fear. Then Blood was speaking in a lowered, confidential voice that admirably blended suavity, impressiveness, and sly mockery.
“If you please, Don Miguel, but that is the very thing you must not do—the very thing Don Diego does not wish you