“Any that do not fall by our swords and are captured.”
“Ha! It is a nuisance to hang a man!” Gonzales declared: “We would have to go to the ship for a rope. The blade is better! Fray Felipe!”
“Señor?” the fray questioned. He approached them.
“You are yet my friend,” Gonzales said. “If you get into the thick of it, stand you behind me, that I may protect you. But a battle is not a place for a fray. Stay you behind, and say your prayers!”
“There is the matter of the goblet,” Fray Felipe replied, softly.
“By the saints, I take it upon myself to get the goblet for you, fray!”
“Do so, and I call you son!”
Sergeant Gonzales bared his head for an instant. He looked at Fray Felipe as though embarrassed, and then returned his hat to his head and gulped. “I have been an evil man in my time,” he said, “but I trust that the saints will forget it for this day at least. I would have added strength to this good right arm of mine! Don Audre, I am ready!”
Don Audre Ruiz led the way along the shore. They crept nearer the camp of the pirates, spread out fan fashion, and approached boldly. They reached the crest of a slope, and saw the camp spread before them in the first rays of the morning sun.
The pirates seemed to be more numerous than even Don Audre Ruiz had expected. It looked to be a hopeless task, this attack. But there was something to urge them on.