eavens straight abeam. He afterwards told Pitt that
had Don Diego confirmed him, he would have run him through upon that
instant. Far from that, however, the Spaniard freely expressed his
scorn.

"You have the assurance that is of ignorance, Don Pedro; and you lose.
The North Star is this one." And he indicated it.

"You are sure?"

"But my dear Don Pedro!" The Spaniard's tone was one of amused protest.
"But is it possible that I mistake? Besides, is there not the compass?
Come to the binnacle and see there what course we make."

His utter frankness, and the easy manner of one who has nothing to
conceal resolved at once the doubt that had leapt so suddenly in the
mind of Captain Blood. Pitt was satisfied less easily.

"In that case, Don Diego, will you tell me, since Curacao is our
destination, why our course is what it is?"

Again there was no faintest hesitation on Don Diego's part. "You have
reason to ask," said he, and sighed. "I had hope' it would not be
observe'. I have been careless--oh, of a carelessness very culpable. I
neglect observation. Always it is my way. I make too sure. I count too
much on dead reckoning. And so to-day I find when at last I take out
the quadrant that we do come by a half-degree too much south, so that
Curacao is now almost due north. That is what cause the delay. But we
will be there to-morrow."

The explanation, so completely satisfactory, and so readily and candidly
forthcoming, left no room for further doubt that Don Diego should have
been false to his parole. And when presently Don Diego had withdrawn
again, Captain Blood confessed to Pitt that it was absurd to have
suspected him. Whatever his antecedents, he had proved his quality when
he announced himself ready to die sooner than enter into any undertaking
that could hurt his honour or his country.

New to the seas of the Spanish Main and to the ways of the adventurers
who sailed it, Captain Blood still entertained illusions. But the next
dawn was to shatter them rudely and for ever.

Coming on deck before the sun was up, he saw land ahead, as the Spaniard
had promised them last night. Some ten miles ahead it lay, a long
coast-line filling the horizon east and west, with a massive headland
jutting forward straight before them. Staring at it, he frowned. He had
not conceived that Curacao was of such considerable dimensions. Indeed,
this looked less like an island than the main itself.

Beating out aweather, against the