ybody. I advised your father to say a
prayer for our success. I depend upon you to help me more materially."

"I will do my best. God knows I will do my best," the boy protested.

Blood nodded thoughtfully, and no more was said until they bumped
alongside the towering mass of the Encarnadon. Up the ladder went
Don Esteban closely followed by Captain Blood. In the waist stood the
Admiral himself to receive them, a handsome, self-sufficient man,
very tall and stiff, a little older and greyer than Don Diego, whom he
closely resembled. He was supported by four officers and a friar in the
black and white habit of St. Dominic.

Don Miguel opened his arms to his nephew, whose lingering panic he
mistook for pleasurable excitement, and having enfolded him to his bosom
turned to greet Don Esteban's companion.

Peter Blood bowed gracefully, entirely at his ease, so far as might be
judged from appearances.

"I am," he announced, making a literal translation of his name, "Don
Pedro Sangre, an unfortunate gentleman of Leon, lately delivered from
captivity by Don Esteban's most gallant father." And in a few words
he sketched the imagined conditions of his capture by, and deliverance
from, those accursed heretics who held the island of Barbados.
"Benedicamus Domino," said the friar to his tale.

"Ex hoc nunc et usque in seculum," replied Blood, the occasional papist,
with lowered eyes.

The Admiral and his attending officers gave him a sympathetic hearing
and a cordial welcome. Then came the dreaded question.

"But where is my brother? Why has he not come, himself, to greet me?"

It was young Espinosa who answered this:

"My father is afflicted at denying himself that honour and pleasure. But
unfortunately, sir uncle, he is a little indisposed--oh, nothing grave;
merely sufficient to make him keep his cabin. It is a little fever, the
result of a slight wound taken in the recent raid upon Barbados, which
resulted in this gentleman's happy deliverance."

"Nay, nephew, nay," Don Miguel protested with ironic repudiation. "I can
have no knowledge of these things. I have the honour to represent upon
the seas His Catholic Majesty, who is at peace with the King of England.
Already you have told me more than it is good for me to know. I will
endeavour to forget it, and I will ask you, sirs," he added, glancing at
his officers, "to forget it also." But he winked into the twinkling
eyes of Captain Blood; then added matter that at once