“No man was near it,” Sanchez declared. “But it sounded. I do not like this business!”
Barbados shivered, but made a show of courage. “Something struck it,” he said. “Possibly something dropped from aloft. Are you babies that you flinch because of the ringing of a bell? To your work, else I wade among you, naked blade in hand! Ha! I have sailed with a throng of children, it appears!”
They bent to their work again, and at that moment Señor Zorro hurled another bolt, and the bell rang out clearly once more. Again the work stopped as though Barbados had bawled an order for the men to cease.
“A ghost bell!” a man shrieked.
“A ghost bell!” Sanchez declared, crossing himself. “We are doomed! The ship is doomed!”
“To your work!” Barbados was both afraid and angry now. He strode forward, threatening them. He made his way toward the bell, and stood looking at it. Because of his presence the bell did not ring again. Yet Barbados did not feel at all easy. He beckoned the man who had the goblet.
“You retain the thing?” he asked.
“Sí, señor!”
“It is an evil thing for you to hold.”
“You want it?”