“’Tis fortunate,” whispered De Brésac, “for we may yet make a good running fight for it.”
“Aye, Chevalier. ’Tis better to be spitted outright than to die at intervals. I think we may give some account of ourselves.”
“If I had but a piece of steel,” he groaned,—“but a piece of steel—I would make carrion of the fellow with the morion there!”
“Aye, and you haven’t! Wait a little. Something may happen.”
But like most plans of the like, this one came to naught; and I saw our hopes of escape upon that night go glimmering. For at about three hours from sunset who should come into the hut but Don Diego de Baçan with a quarrelsome disposition of mind and a swaggering body. He had been drinking freely and still carried a jug of eau-de-vie, from which he drank at intervals while he talked. With him were two officers, by name Vincente and Patiño. Patiño, a thin black fidgety shadow of a man, was captain of the watch. He had been upon the San Cristobal and I remembered him well. Fortunately, he, too, had drunk more than was good, for otherwise he was just such a squirming worm to pry into all small affairs with most profit, and I trembled lest Job Goddard should betray himself. They had us carried into the main hall, where a fire of logs was built; and then when chairs and table had been brought, they set upon us in every conceivable fashion to try the temper; to the end that in a short while De Brésac, whose nerves were near the surface, was touched to the very quick of his honor and lay foaming, speechless with rage.
It suited the humor of De Baçan to offer us drink; of which, since it came from his own jug, I took a little, though it was not needful for the business I had in hand, and I never had a habit of much drinking.
“Well, my petticoat hunter,” he jeered at last, “you have made a fine mess of this business, sure enough.”
“I must confess, Señor,” I replied, smiling up at him, “that I am none so comfortable as I might be.”
“Comfort is ever the desire of old women and Englishmen, Sir Pirato!”
“But we have no chance to exercise—to stretch our limbs——” I began.