Every man of the shore party shall go armed with hanger
on hip, a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, a good bow in his hand,
and a quiver full of arrows slung over his shoulder. We muster on the
main deck twenty minutes hence, and the pinnace, with the interpreter's
boat, ought to be sufficient to carry us all from the ship to the
wharf."

The first half-dozen men who were ready slid down the ship's side into
the interpreter's boat so swiftly and silently that they took her
astonished crew completely by surprise, and held them in subjection
until the rest were ready; then Senor Pacheco, slung in a noose, was
lowered down the ship's side, and roughly ordered into the stern-sheets
by Dick, who followed him there and kept him in apparent awe with a
drawn pistol. Within the twenty minutes all were ready and embarked in
the two boats--the pinnace having been lowered in the interim, when they
pushed off from the _Adventure_, the attenuated crew of which bade them
Godspeed with a hearty cheer--and headed up the harbour toward the
north-western half of the town.

The distance which they had to pull, in order to reach the wharf
indicated by Pacheco, was about three-quarters of a mile, and as they
neared the landing-place they perceived that a good many people had
gathered, and were watching them curiously; but of soldiers there was
not one to be seen, which Bascomb confessed he regarded as rather a bad
sign, as the absence of any visible inclination to resist their landing
seemed to him to point to the preparation of a trap somewhere on the
road. He asked Pacheco what he thought about it.

"God forgive me! I know not what to think, most illustrious," answered
that worthy. "But I like it not, for I think with you that the Governor
would never permit you to land unresisted, had he not prepared a warm
reception for you at some point where you will be at even greater
disadvantage than you would be on the wharf. And yet I do not know how
that could be either, for he has had no means of learning your
destination, so how could he know where to set his trap? But, lest he
should have guessed, I will lead you by the less direct way, for there
are two roads by which it is possible to reach the Inquisition."

As the boats ranged up alongside the wharf, and the Englishmen mounted
and formed up on the quay, the mob, which consisted of about two hundred
wharf labourers, with a small sprinkling of half-breed women and fifty
or sixt