"They? Why, we are only four against a hundred."
"You are mistaken. There are two hundred; and that makes fifty for each of us. Call in the dogs, L'Olonnais; they are now useless. Stay! Look there; can you see them?"
And he stretched his arm out straight ahead.
In fact, the long lances of the Spanish soldiers appeared above the tall grass. Lepoletais had told the truth. These lances formed a circle, which was being more and more contracted round the boucan.
"Come! That is rather neat," the buccaneer added, as he affectionately tapped the butt of his long fusil.
"Señora," he added, "keep by the side of the wounded man."
"Oh! Let me give myself up," she exclaimed, frantically. "It is on my account that this terrible danger menaces you."
"Señora," the buccaneer replied, as he struck his chest with a gesture of supreme majesty; "you are under the safeguard of my honour, and I swear by Heaven, that no one, so long as I live, shall dare to lay a finger upon you! Go to the wounded man."
Involuntarily subdued by the accent with which the buccaneer uttered these words, Doña Clara bowed without replying, and pensively seated herself inside the ajoupa, by the side of Fray Arsenio, who was still asleep.
"Now, caballero," Lepoletais said to Don Sancho, "if you have never been present at a buccaneering expedition, I promise you you are going to see some fun, and enjoy yourself."