an agreeable, even an amusing companion, and their
friendly feeling towards him was fostered by his fortitude and brave
equanimity in this adversity.

That Don Diego was not playing fair it was impossible to suspect.
Moreover, there was no conceivable reason why he should not. And he had
been of the utmost frankness with them. He had denounced their mistake
in sailing before the wind upon leaving Barbados. They should have left
the island to leeward, heading into the Caribbean and away from the
archipelago. As it was, they would now be forced to pass through this
archipelago again so as to make Curacao, and this passage was not to be
accomplished without some measure of risk to themselves. At any point
between the islands they might come upon an equal or superior craft;
whether she were Spanish or English would be equally bad for them, and
being undermanned they were in no case to fight. To lessen this risk
as far as possible, Don Diego directed at first a southerly and then
a westerly course; and so, taking a line midway between the islands of
Tobago and Grenada, they won safely through the danger-zone and came
into the comparative security of the Caribbean Sea.

"If this wind holds," he told them that night at supper, after he had
announced to them their position, "we should reach Curacao inside three
days."

For three days the wind held, indeed it freshened a little on the
second, and yet when the third night descended upon them they had still
made no landfall. The Cinco Llagas was ploughing through a sea contained
on every side by the blue bowl of heaven. Captain Blood uneasily
mentioned it to Don Diego.

"It will be for to-morrow morning," he was answered with calm
conviction.

"By all the saints, it is always 'to-morrow morning' with you Spaniards;
and to-morrow never comes, my friend."

"But this to-morrow is coming, rest assured. However early you may be
astir, you shall see land ahead, Don Pedro."

Captain Blood passed on, content, and went to visit Jerry Pitt, his
patient, to whose condition Don Diego owed his chance of life. For
twenty-four hours now the fever had left the sufferer, and under
Peter Blood's dressings, his lacerated back was beginning to heal
satisfactorily. So far, indeed, was he recovered that he complained of
his confinement, of the heat in his cabin. To indulge him Captain Blood
consented that he should take the air on deck, and so, as the last of
the daylight was fading from the s