desire M. de Cussy to report me to the Ministers of France. For
the rest, monsieur, it merely remains for you to give me your orders. I
await them aboard my ship--and anything else, of a personal nature, that
you may feel I have provoked by the terms I have felt compelled to use
in this council. M. le Baron, I have the honour to wish you good-day."

He stalked out, and his three captains--although they thought him
mad--rolled after him in loyal silence.

M. de Rivarol was gasping like a landed fish. The stark truth had robbed
him of speech. When he recovered, it was to thank Heaven vigorously that
the council was relieved by Captain Blood's own act of that gentleman's
further participation in its deliberations. Inwardly M. de Rivarol
burned with shame and rage. The mask had been plucked from him, and he
had been held up to scorn--he, the General of the King's Armies by Sea
and Land in America.

Nevertheless, it was to Cartagena that they sailed in the middle of
March. Volunteers and negroes had brought up the forces directly under
M. de Rivarol to twelve hundred men. With these he thought he could keep
the buccaneer contingent in order and submissive.

They made up an imposing fleet, led by M. de Rivarol's flagship, the
Victorieuse, a mighty vessel of eighty guns. Each of the four other
French ships was at least as powerful as Blood's Arabella, which was
of forty guns. Followed the lesser buccaneer vessels, the Elizabeth,
Lachesis, and Atropos, and a dozen frigates laden with stores, besides
canoes and small craft in tow.

Narrowly they missed the Jamaica fleet with Colonel Bishop, which
sailed north for Tortuga two days after the Baron de Rivarol's southward
passage.

CHAPTER XXVII. CARTAGENA

Having crossed the Caribbean in the teeth of contrary winds, it was not
until the early days of April that the French fleet hove in sight of
Cartagena, and M. de Rivarol summoned a council aboard his flagship to
determine the method of assault.

"It is of importance, messieurs," he told them, "that we take the city
by surprise, not only before it can put itself into a state of defence;
but before it can remove its treasures inland. I propose to land a
force sufficient to achieve this to the north of the city to-night after
dark." And he explained in detail the scheme upon which his wits had
laboured.

He was heard respectfully and approvingly by his officers, scornfully
by Captain Blood, and indifferently by the