ted in the King's service, the men
who are to serve under me--men who do not serve, but dictate, and this
before the enterprise that has brought me from France is even under way!
What explanations do you offer me, M. de Cussy? I warn you that I am
not pleased with you. I am, in fact, as you may perceive, exceedingly
angry."

The Governor seemed to shed his chubbiness. He drew himself stiffly
erect.

"Your rank, monsieur, does not give you the right to rebuke me; nor
do the facts. I have enlisted for you the men that you desired me to
enlist. It is not my fault if you do not know how to handle them better.
As Captain Blood has told you, this is the New World."

"So, so!" M. de Rivarol smiled malignantly. "Not only do you offer no
explanation, but you venture to put me in the wrong. Almost I admire
your temerity. But there!" he waved the matter aside. He was supremely
sardonic. "It is, you tell me, the New World, and--new worlds, new
manners, I suppose. In time I may conform my ideas to this new world, or
I may conform this new world to my ideas." He was menacing on that. "For
the moment I must accept what I find. It remains for you, monsieur,
who have experience of these savage by-ways, to advise me out of that
experience how to act."

"M. le Baron, it was a folly to have arrested the buccaneer captain. It
would be madness to persist. We have not the forces to meet force."

"In that case, monsieur, perhaps you will tell me what we are to do with
regard to the future. Am I to submit at every turn to the dictates
of this man Blood? Is the enterprise upon which we are embarked to be
conducted as he decrees? Am I, in short, the King's representative in
America, to be at the mercy of these rascals?"

"Oh, by no means. I am enrolling volunteers here in Hispaniola, and I
am raising a corps of negroes. I compute that when this is done we shall
have a force of a thousand men, the buccaneers apart."

"But in that case why not dispense with them?"

"Because they will always remain the sharp edge of any weapon that we
forge. In the class of warfare that lies before us they are so skilled
that what Captain Blood has just said is not an overstatement. A
buccaneer is equal to three soldiers of the line. At the same time we
shall have a sufficient force to keep them in control. For the rest,
monsieur, they have certain notions of honour. They will stand by their
articles, and so that we deal justly with them, they will deal jus