ve the two men and the boat which rode unhurt at a distance.
Foy stared at them. The steersman was seated and wringing his hands,
while the captain, on whose armour the rays of the rising sun now shone
brightly, held to the mast like one stunned, and gazed at the place
where, a minute before, had been a ship and a troop of living men.
Presently he seemed to recover himself, for he issued an order, whereon
the boat's head went about, and she began to glide away.

"Now we had best try to catch him," said Martha, who, by standing up,
could see this also.

"Nay, let him be," answered Foy, "we have sent enough men to their
account," and he shuddered.

"As you will, master," grumbled Martin, "but I tell you it is not
wise. That man is too clever to be allowed to live, else he would have
accompanied the others on board and perished with them."

"Oh! I am sick," replied Foy. "The wind from that powder has shaken me.
Settle it as you will with Mother Martha and leave me in peace."

So Martin turned to speak with Martha, but she was not there. Chuckling
to herself in the madness of her hate and the glory of this great
revenge, she had slipped away, knife in hand, to discover whether
perchance any of the powder-blasted Spaniards still lived. Fortunately
for them they did not, the shock had killed them all, even those who at
the first alarm had thrown themselves into the water. At length
Martin found her clapping her hands and crooning above a dead body, so
shattered that no one could tell to what manner of man it had belonged,
and led her away.

But although she was keen enough for the chase, by now it was too
late, for, travelling before the strong wind, Ramiro and his boat had
vanished.

CHAPTER XV

SENOR RAMIRO

If Foy van Goorl, by some magic, could have seen what was passing in
the mind of that fugitive in the boat as he sailed swiftly away from the
scene of death and ruin, bitterly indeed would he have cursed his folly
and inexperience which led him to disregard the advice of Red Martin.

Let us look at this man as he goes gnawing his hand in rage and
disappointment. There is something familiar about his face and bearing,
still gallant enough in a fashion, yet the most observant would find
it difficult to recognise in the Senor Ramiro the handsome and courtly
Count Juan de Montalvo of over twenty years before. A long spell of the
galleys changes the hardiest man, and by ill luck Montalvo, or Ramiro,
to call