‘Where was your ship when you came into the harbour?—speak, sir!’ thundered the alcaide, ‘or it will be the worse for you.’
But I answered very quietly, but firmly, that these were matters on which he could not expect me to give him any satisfaction. At this the little ferret-eyed man grinned and rubbed his hands, after which he took down my answer, very formally.
‘Dost thou know—thou heretical rogue—that the very shadow of the gallows is upon thee!’ cried the alcaide. ‘If thou valuest thy life, at the rate of a brass maravedi, make a clean breast of it. Confess—speak the designs of the pirates, thy comrades, and it may be that we will have pity on thy youth; and instead of cutting short thy days, send thee to labour for some lengthened space in the mines of Darien.’
There was a pause after this alternative had been offered to me. Then I collected my thoughts and spoke thus:—
‘I am in your power, and I can make no resistance to your will, but I pray the judge to consider whether he, a Spanish gentleman, being in the hands of his enemies, would feel that he did right in betraying staunch comrades for the sake of his own life. As to your threats, I fear them but little; I am of a race having stout hearts and tough sinews, and I tell you, Spaniards, that if I come to evil in your hands, there will be those left behind me, who will dearly wreak my death on all men of your nation, whom the fortune of war may fling into their hands. I speak this not in idle braggadocio; I am young, and it is hard for me to leave this world, in whom are many I love well; but I will not save my life by turning a traitor from fear. There have been Spaniards ere now in my power, and I let them go. They had not even to ask their lives—they were granted freely. We English and Scotch mariners love not to spill defenceless blood—we rather fight with swords and pikes than with halters. But if you be bent upon my death, I warn you again, that many a Spanish throat will bleed for it, ere the bark in which I was a mariner see Jamaica again.’
I spoke this with a warm energy, which surprised myself, and a better flow of words than I thought I could muster in Spanish. Don José struck his hand upon the table as I finished, and cried vehemently out——
‘Well said, by the soul of a Cid! Pedro-y-Monte, you must not hang this spark. It will do you no good, man. The youth hath a spirit, and bears himself boldly. Pedro, you must let the fellow go. What, man! he will not take Carthagena from you; I will insure that, although my warlike friend Guzman may not feel himself justified in saying so much, on behalf of his own valour.’
The officer so alluded to, turned rapidly from red to white, and white to red. He mumbled and grumbled to himself, and then forced out somewhat about its being known; that he, a simple soldier, could not compete in word-sallies and figures of speech with so renowned a courtier as Don José. He was interrupted by the alcaide, who said that it was ever his pleasure to honour so honourable and great a gentleman as Don José; but here was a matter in which he but spoke the written words of the law, and these words said that the doom of pirates was death.
‘Yes, I grant thee,’ exclaimed my unexpected advocate; ‘but is the youth a pirate? You go too fast, good Master Alcaide. Justice is blind; but you see more than there is to behold!’
The alcaide, who evidently wished to keep well with Don José, and who as evidently wished to string me up, began to get very red in the face, and to mutter half-suppressed words of passion. Just then, the ferret-eyed man whispered him at one ear, while Captain Guzman possessed himself of the other. After listening for a few seconds, the judge seemed to decide what he should do; accordingly, he hemmed twice, and began in a loud pompous style—