Asphlant did not utter a syllable in reply, but went to execute the order. The revellers continued their carouse.
From time to time their conversation was interrupted by a blood-curdling death shriek, which silenced the bacchanalian songs for a moment and stopped the wine-cup on its way to their lips, but the next instant the talk was resumed.
The orgy was closed by an illumination furnished by the flames consuming Fletcher's ship, which lighted the whole harbor.
The negroes were chained together in couples, and the harbor swarmed with sharks. Whenever a pair was thrown into the sea the waves around were reddened; at each death shriek Barthelemy drained a glass of wine, muttering: "That is for the cottage in Hispaniola." The negroes were all murdered, but Barthelemy was not yet drunk.
The captains left him at a late hour, hoping that they might meet again. Barthelemy gave each a receipt for the ransom money which, preserved among other documents in the government archives, ran as follows:
We, the Knights of Fortune, hereby inform all whom it may concern, that we have received from Captain —— of the ship —— eight pounds of gold dust as ransom money, for which we released the said ship. Given under our hand and seal in the harbor of Mydaw, on the 13th of January, 1722.
Robert Barthelemy (Henry Glasby).
The storm was subsiding. A calm night followed. The moon rose, shedding a magical lustre upon the sea. Barthelemy stood on the deck of his ship with folded arms, gazing at the stars.
How much wine and blood he had poured to intoxicate himself, but all in vain. Neither wine nor blood gave him peace and forgetfulness. Ah, he could win no forgetfulness, that sweet unconsciousness of the soul, but instead came memory, the anguish of recalling the past.