But the Blackbirder's English was limited, and the shock of meeting missionaries of so strange a texture had bemused his wits.
Blair begged Stuart to speak to him in Spanish, and the wandering wits came back at sound of it.
"Tell him," said Blair, "that the islanders he has kidnapped are our people, and we intend to take them home again."
And Stuart put it to him so.
"If he makes any resistance we shall overcome it. What does he say?"
"He asks how you're going to take them back."
"We will see to all that presently. First, he will bring aboard here all the arms they have over yonder," said Blair, and as that sank through Stuart into the other's understanding, the little boar-eyes gleamed more viciously than ever, and the fat body rumbled with volcanic fires.
"We will give him half an hour to deliver up the arms. If they are not here then, his other mast will go. He will bring them over himself."
The little eyes glared furiously round, but found nothing but grimmest determination in the faces that hemmed him in. Possibly they did not fail to note all the other points bearing on the question. He shambled to the side with a growl in his throat, and got heavily into his boat, and was pulled across to his ship, and immediately they heard the simmering of a hot discussion tipped with sharp flakes of invective.
"They don't like it," said Captain Cathie.