f
the Englishmen below. His lips writhed in a snarling smile.

"Ah, perro ingles! You know too much," he said under his breath, and
sprang for the Captain's throat.

Tight-locked in each other's arms, they swayed a moment, then together
went down upon the deck, the Spaniard's feet jerked from under him
by the right leg of Captain Blood. The Spaniard had depended upon his
strength, which was considerable. But it proved no match for the
steady muscles of the Irishman, tempered of late by the vicissitudes
of slavery. He had depended upon choking the life out of Blood, and so
gaining the half-hour that might be necessary to bring up that fine
ship that was beating towards them--a Spanish ship, perforce, since
none other would be so boldly cruising in these Spanish waters off
Hispaniola. But all that Don Diego had accomplished was to betray
himself completely, and to no purpose. This he realized when he found
himself upon his back, pinned down by Blood, who was kneeling on his
chest, whilst the men summoned by their Captain's shout came clattering
up the companion.

"Will I say a prayer for your dirty soul now, whilst I am in this
position?" Captain Blood was furiously mocking him.

But the Spaniard, though defeated, now beyond hope for himself, forced
his lips to smile, and gave back mockery for mockery.

"Who will pray for your soul, I wonder, when that galleon comes to lie
board and board with you?"

"That galleon!" echoed Captain Blood with sudden and awful realization
that already it was too late to avoid the consequences of Don Diego's
betrayal of them.

"That galleon," Don Diego repeated, and added with a deepening sneer:
"Do you know what ship it is? I will tell you. It is the Encarnacion,
the flagship of Don Miguel de Espinosa, the Lord Admiral of Castile,
and Don Miguel is my brother. It is a very fortunate encounter. The
Almighty, you see, watches over the destinies of Catholic Spain."

There was no trace of humour or urbanity now in Captain Blood. His light
eyes blazed: his face was set.

He rose, relinquishing the Spaniard to his men. "Make him fast," he bade
them. "Truss him, wrist and heel, but don't hurt him--not so much as a
hair of his precious head."

The injunction was very necessary. Frenzied by the thought that they
were likely to exchange the slavery from which they had so lately
escaped for a slavery still worse, they would have torn the Spaniard
limb from limb upon the spot. And if they