d held any
commission from the King of England; that he was, in fact, a proscribed
rebel, an escaped slave, and that any measures against him by His
Catholic Majesty would receive the cordial approbation of King James II.

Don Miguel de Espinosa, the Admiral of Spain in the West Indies, and his
nephew Don Esteban who sailed with him, did not lack the will to bring
the adventurer to the yardarm. With them this business of capturing
Blood, which was now an international affair, was also a family matter.

Spain, through the mouth of Don Miguel, did not spare her threats.
The report of them reached Tortuga, and with it the assurance that Don
Miguel had behind him not only the authority of his own nation, but that
of the English King as well.

It was a brutum fulmen that inspired no terrors in Captain Blood. Nor
was he likely, on account of it, to allow himself to run to rust in the
security of Tortuga. For what he had suffered at the hands of Man he had
chosen to make Spain the scapegoat. Thus he accounted that he served a
twofold purpose: he took compensation and at the same time served, not
indeed the Stuart King, whom he despised, but England and, for that
matter, all the rest of civilized mankind which cruel, treacherous,
greedy, bigoted Castile sought to exclude from intercourse with the New
World.

One day as he sat with Hagthorpe and Wolverstone over a pipe and
a bottle of rum in the stifling reek of tar and stale tobacco of a
waterside tavern, he was accosted by a splendid ruffian in a gold-laced
coat of dark-blue satin with a crimson sash, a foot wide, about the
waist.

"C'est vous qu'on appelle Le Sang?" the fellow hailed him.

Captain Blood looked up to consider the questioner before replying.
The man was tall and built on lines of agile strength, with a swarthy,
aquiline face that was brutally handsome. A diamond of great price
flamed on the indifferently clean hand resting on the pummel of his long
rapier, and there were gold rings in his ears, half-concealed by long
ringlets of oily chestnut hair.

Captain Blood took the pipe-stem from between his lips.

"My name," he said, "is Peter Blood. The Spaniards know me for Don Pedro
Sangre and a Frenchman may call me Le Sang if he pleases."

"Good," said the gaudy adventurer in English, and without further
invitation he drew up a stool and sat down at that greasy table. "My
name," he informed the three men, two of whom at least were eyeing him
askance, "it