he defending ordnance reloading; then as they drew the Spaniards'
fire, they swung away again not only taking care to be ever moving
targets, but, further, to present no more than bow or stern to the fort,
their masts in line, when the heaviest cannonades were to be expected.

Gibbering and cursing, M. de Rivarol stood there and watched this
action, so presumptuously undertaken by Blood on his own responsibility.
The officers of the Victorieuse crowded round him, but it was not until
M. de Cussy came to join the group that he opened the sluices of his
rage. And M. de Cussy himself invited the deluge that now caught him.
He had come up rubbing his hands and taking a proper satisfaction in the
energy of the men whom he had enlisted.

"Aha, M. de Rivarol!" he laughed. "He understands his business, eh,
this Captain Blood. He'll plant the Lilies of France on that fort before
breakfast."

The Baron swung upon him snarling. "He understands his business, eh? His
business, let me tell you, M. de Cussy, is to obey my orders, and I have
not ordered this. Par la Mordieu! When this is over I'll deal with him
for his damned insubordination."

"Surely, M. le Baron, he will have justified it if he succeeds."

"Justified it! Ah, parbleu! Can a soldier ever justify acting without
orders?" He raved on furiously, his officers supporting him out of their
detestation of Captain Blood.

Meanwhile the fight went merrily on. The fort was suffering badly. Yet
for all their manoeuvring the buccaneers were not escaping punishment.
The starboard gunwale of the Atropos had been hammered into splinters,
and a shot had caught her astern in the coach. The Elizabeth was badly
battered about the forecastle, and the Arabella's maintop had been
shot away, whilst' towards the end of that engagement the Lachesis came
reeling out of the fight with a shattered rudder, steering herself by
sweeps.

The absurd Baron's fierce eyes positively gleamed with satisfaction.

"I pray Heaven they may sink all his infernal ships!" he cried in his
frenzy.

But Heaven didn't hear him. Scarcely had he spoken than there was a
terrific explosion, and half the fort went up in fragments. A lucky shot
from the buccaneers had found the powder magazine.

It may have been a couple of hours later, when Captain Blood, as
spruce and cool as if he had just come from a levee, stepped upon the
quarter-deck of the Victoriense, to confront M. de Rivarol, still in
bedgown and nigh