nd as the tide
began to ebb, Captain Blood's fleet weighed anchor quietly; and, as once
before, with no more canvas spread than that which their sprits could
carry, so as to give them steering way--and even these having been
painted black--the four vessels, without a light showing, groped their
way by soundings to the channel which led to that narrow passage out to
sea.

The Elizabeth and the Infanta, leading side by side, were almost abreast
of the fort before their shadowy bulks and the soft gurgle of water at
their prows were detected by the Spaniards, whose attention until that
moment had been all on the other side. And now there arose on the night
air such a sound of human baffled fury as may have resounded about Babel
at the confusion of tongues. To heighten that confusion, and to scatter
disorder among the Spanish soldiery, the Elizabeth emptied her larboard
guns into the fort as she was swept past on the swift ebb.

At once realizing--though not yet how--he had been duped, and that his
prey was in the very act of escaping after all, the Admiral frantically
ordered the guns that had been so laboriously moved to be dragged back
to their former emplacements, and commanded his gunners meanwhile to
the slender batteries that of all his powerful, but now unavailable,
armament still remained trained upon the channel. With these, after the
loss of some precious moments, the fort at last made fire.

It was answered by a terrific broadside from the Arabella, which had
now drawn abreast, and was crowding canvas to her yards. The enraged
and gibbering Spaniards had a brief vision of her as the line of flame
spurted from her red flank, and the thunder of her broadside drowned
the noise of the creaking halyards. After that they saw her no more.
Assimilated by the friendly darkness which the lesser Spanish guns were
speculatively stabbing, the escaping ships fired never another shot that
might assist their baffled and bewildered enemies to locate them.

Some slight damage was sustained by Blood's fleet. But by the time the
Spaniards had resolved their confusion into some order of dangerous
offence, that fleet, well served by a southerly breeze, was through the
narrows and standing out to sea.

Thus was Don Miguel de Espinosa left to chew the bitter cud of a lost
opportunity, and to consider in what terms he would acquaint the
Supreme Council of the Catholic King that Peter Blood had got away from
Maracaybo, taking with hi