«My God, sir » Hagthorpe was beginning, when Captain Blood's crisp, pleasant voice cut across his speech.
«And you, Monsieur Joinville, will permit this without protest?»
Joinville spread his hands, thrust out a nether lip, and shrugged. «You have brought it on yourself, Captain Blood.»
«So that is what you are here to report to Monsieur d'Ogeron! Well, well!» He laughed with a touch of bitterness.
And then, abruptly, on the noontide stillness outside came the thunder of a gun to shake them all. Followed the screaming of startled gulls, a pause in which men eyed one another, and then, a shade uneasily, came the question from Easterling, addressed to no one in particular:
«What the devil's that?»
It was Blood who answered him pleasantly. «Now, don't let it alarm ye, Captain, darling. It's just a salute fired in your honour by Ogle, the gunner the highly skilful gunner of the Cinco Llagas. Have I told you about him yet?» His eyes embraced the company in the question.
«A salute?» quoth Easterling. «By Hell, what do you mean? A salute?»
«Why, just a courtesy, as a reminder to us and a warning to you. It's a reminder to us that we've taken up an hour of your time, and that we must put no further strain upon your hospitality.» He got to his feet, and stood, easy and elegant in his Spanish suit of black and silver. «It's a very good day we'll be wishing you, Captain.»
Inflamed of countenance, Easterling plucked a pistol from his belt. «You playacting buffoon! Ye don't leave this ship.»
But Captain Blood continued to smile. «Faith, that will be very bad for the ship, and for all aboard her, including this ingenuous Monsieur Joinville, who really believes you'll pay him the promised share of your phantom treasure for bearing false witness against me, so as to justify you in the eyes of the Governor for seizing the Cinco Llagas. Ye see, I am under no delusions, concerning you, my dear captain. For a rogue ye're a thought too transparent.»
Easterling loosed a volley of minatory obscenity, waving his pistol. He was restrained from using it only by an indefinable uneasiness aroused by his guest's bantering manner.
«We are wasting time,» Blood interrupted him, «and the moments, believe me, are growing singularly precious. You'ld best know where you stand. My orders to Ogle were that if within ten minutes of his firing that salute I and my friends here were not over the side of the Bonaventure, he was to put a round shot into your forecastle along the waterline, and as many more after that as may be necessary to sink you by the head. I do not think that many will be necessary. Ogle is a singularly skilful marksman. He served with distinction as a gunner in the King's Navy. I think I've told you about him.»
It was Joinville who broke the moment's silence that followed. «God of my life!» he bleated, bounding to his feet. «Let me out of this.»
«Oh, stow your squealing, you French rat,» snarled the infuriated Easterling. Then he turned his fury upon Blood, balancing the pistol ominously. «You sneaking leech, you college offal! You'ld ha' done better to ha' stuck to your cuppings and bleedings, as I told you.»
His murderous intention was plain. But Blood was too swift for him. Before any could so much as guess his purpose, he had snatched up by its neck the flagon of Canary that stood before him, and crashed it across Captain Easterling's left temple.
As the captain of the Bonaventure reeled back against the cabin bulkhead, Peter Blood bowed slightly to him.
«I regret,» said he, «that I have no cup; but, as you see, I can practise phlebotomy with a bottle.»
Easterling sagged down in a limp, unconscious mass at the foot of the bulkhead. The spectacle stirred his officers. There was a movement towards Captain Blood, and a din of raucous voices, and someone laid hands upon him. But above the uproar rang his vibrant voice.
«Be warned! The moments are speeding. The ten minutes have all but fled, and either I and my friends depart, or we all sink together in this bottom.»
«In God's name, bethink you of it!» cried Joinville, and started for the door.
A buccaneer, who did bethink him of it and who was of a practical turn of mind, seized him about the body, and flung him back.
«You there!» he shouted to Captain Blood. «You and your men go first. And bestir yourselves! We've no mind to drown like rats.»
They went as they were bidden, curses pursuing them and threats of a reckoning to follow.
Either the ruffians aswarm on the deck above were not in the secret of Easterling's intentions, or else a voice of authority forbade them to hinder
the departure of Captain Blood and his companions.
In the cockboat, midway between the two vessels, Hagthorpe found his voice at last.
«On my soul's salvation, Peter, there was a moment when I thought our sands were run.»
«Ay, ay,» said Pitt, with fervour. «And even as it was they might have been.» He swung to Peter Blood, where he sat in the sternsheets. «Suppose that for one reason or another we had not got out in those ten minutes, and Ogle had opened fire in earnest? What, then?»