"The Mirandola it shall be, sir; 'tis a fair sounding name, and, if I may speak my mind, befits a tight little craft somewhat better than a heathen monkey. Though i' fecks, I'd liever call her by a plainer name; yet it shall be as you say."
"And now, a matter that troubles me, Amos: what shall we do with the Spaniards our captives?"
"Be jowned if I would let the knaves trouble me. Let 'em loose afore we sail. There is much food, I doubt not, in the fort, and abundance in the woods around. The knaves will not starve; t'ud be no great loss if they did; and belike a vessel will come to this place ere many days be past, and then they can tell the tale, with raging and cursing that will harm us not a jot."
"It shall be done. And it will be well, I trow, to raze the fort to the ground. It has been built with the blood and sweat of our comrades; to destroy it will be a just reprisal."
"Ay, and make the knaves to dismantle it with their own hands. I would fain scourge their naked backs as they have scourged mine, many's the time."
"And the ordnance?"
"Burst it asunder. Why should we leave it sound to belch its shot, mayhap, on English craft some day? God-a-mercy, 'twas a famous shot of yours, sir, that sent the mainmast by the board, and I don't grudge it 'ee that your aim was truer than mine. 'Tis twenty-five year since I served the ordnance on the Anne Gallant."
"And I had good practice on the Maid Marian. But you have not forgot your cunning, Amos, and I warrant if we have occasion to use the piece here in the stern you will make good firing. Now 'tis time to return to the fort; I would not that Jan Biddle should stir up the rage of our people against those unhappy Spaniards, and 'tis not unlike, we being absent, he may do so."
"Ay, 'tis meet we trust not Jan Biddle overmuch. Let us go, sir."
They found on returning that Ned Whiddon had already gone into the forest with two or three men to fell a tree for the mast. While he was absent on this errand Dennis set part of his company to collect all the Spaniards' small arms and pile them in readiness for conveyance to the vessel, others to ram excessive charges of powder into the guns, and a third gang to superintend the Spaniards in their enforced task of dismantling the fort. Great charges of powder, of which there was an ample store, were placed in barrels in each of the round towers, to be fired at the last moment, for Dennis did not wish to risk an explosion, which must be heard many miles away, until he was on the point of sailing out on the Mirandola.