“Give!” cried the Don passionately. “I offer to pay you!”
“Yes, sir,” said the captain, without changing his tone, “and that makes it worse. I tell you my heart is with you in your project, and that I wish you success, but I am answerable to those men, their friends, and I suppose to my country’s laws for their lives. I have no right to enter into such an enterprise as this.”
“Why?” cried the Don passionately. “You fought with me before!”
“Yes—to save their lives and yours. It was in an emergency. This is a different thing. I cannot do it.”
“Then you forsake me?” cried the Don angrily. “That is neither true nor fair,” replied the skipper sternly. “I have helped you truly and well, and run great risks in bringing you those munitions of war. With that you must be content. As for forsaking you, you know in your heart, through my help and the counsel you have received from my young companion here, you never stood in a better position for dealing a death-blow at your rival’s position. Is that the truth, or is it not?”
“Ah!” cried the Don passionately, evading the question. “When your help means so much you give me empty words.”
“That is no answer, sir,” replied the skipper. “Is what I have said the truth, or is it not?”
Don Ramon turned upon him furiously, his eyes flashing and his hands clenched; but as he met the Englishman’s stern questioning eyes he stopped short, fixed by them, as it were, and then tossing his open hands in the air with a gesture which seemed to say, There, I surrender! his angry countenance softened, and he supported himself by taking hold of the pommel of his saddle.
“Yes,” he said wearily, “of course it is the truth. You always were the man in whom I could trust, and I suppose you are right. Forgive me for being so exacting. But, captain, I have so much at stake.”
“Then trust to the strength of your cause, your position, and the bravery of your people. But I am not going to forsake you, Ramon,” continued the skipper, in a graver and softer tone, “and I will tell you this; if the day goes against you, the schooner will be lying a few hundred yards from shore with her boats ready to take off you and as many of your friends as you wish to bring. I will do that at any risk, but I can do no more.”