[CHAPTER XII.]
THE ROUT COMPLETE.
At this declaration of the modern "Ego civis Romanus," captain Matasiete rather stepped behind the woman than otherwise, as a wary warrior chooses a cotton bale for breastwork when bullets are likely to fly.
"Tut, tut, tut! What is all this farrago to me? In plain words, I come for my daughter whom you took off shore and have on this, I am afraid, piratical craft. I summon you to restore my child straightway, or I'll give you a tough bird to pick!"
Gladsden impudently looked from her to the salteador and then back again, as if he were in doubt which was "the old bird" she offered for plucking.
"And you will have me to deal with my fresh hand at ship ruling, Señor," cried don Aníbal at last, having edged over, to the gangway, and seeing the skiff drawn near enough for the soldiers, eager for the fray under the taunts of the seamen, to haply clamber on board to his aid.
The boatmen, whom he knew something of, and who might have numbered more than one of the former crew of the Little Joker, could be relied on to back up the musketeers, he believed.
"My young Captain, if you play the resistant, hang me if I shall not bring you to reason and decorate a shark's tooth with fragments of your hide! Even yet, you do not know of what I am capable! Rayo de Dios. Mind yourself! Patience is not one of my virtues!"
The consul intimated to Gladsden that there was no necessity of an outbreak of temper, as, while the brigantine's crew could lay out the soldiers comfortably in a twinkling, his own boat's crew could eat up the skiff's propelling force without salt.