“Ha!” Don Diego said. “What have we here? Señores, it is the night before my wedding, and most persons are welcome to partake of my hospitality. But this happens to be a select gathering of my close friends, and I really cannot remember of having sent you invitations.”
“Have done!” Barbados bellowed, his voice ringing with a courage he scarcely felt. “Have done, fashionable fop! We are men who sail under the black flag, terrible alike on land and sea!”
Don Diego Vega threw back his head and laughed lightly.
“Did you hear that, Audre, my friend?” he asked Ruiz. “This fellow says that he and his comrades are terrible alike on land and sea.”
Don Audre entered into the spirit of the occasion, as he always did. “Diego, I did not know that you were such a wit,” he said. “Have you hired these fellows to come here and give us a fright? Ha! It is a merry jest, one that I’ll remember to my last day! For a moment I was ready to draw blade.”
“Jest, is it?” Barbados cried, lurching forward almost to the foot of the table. “’Twill be considered no jest when we have stripped you of your jewels and plaything swords and this house of what valuables it contains! Back up against that wall, señores, and the man who makes a rash move will not live to make another!”
“I have made a multitude of rash moves, and I still live,” Don Audre Ruiz told him. “Diego, it is indeed an excellent jest! I give you my thanks!”
“Pirates!” Don Diego said, laughing again. “In reality, I did not hire them to come here and furnish us with this entertainment. But since they have been so kind, it is no more than right that I pay them!” He sprang to his feet, bent forward with his hands upon the table, and glared down the length of it at Barbados. “You are the chief bull pirate?” he asked.
“I am the king of the crew!” Barbados replied. “Back against that wall, you and your friends!”