“Who's there?” he asked, but without alarm, supposing it one of his fellows.
“It is I,” softly answered Peter Blood in the fluent Castillan of which he was master.
“Is it you, Pedro?” The Spaniard came a step nearer.
“Peter is my name; but I doubt I'll not be the Peter you're expecting.”
“How?” quoth the sentry, checking.
“This way,” said Mr. Blood.
The wooden taffrail was a low one, and the Spaniard was taken completely by surprise. Save for the splash he made as he struck the water, narrowly missing one of the crowded boats that waited under the counter, not a sound announced his misadventure. Armed as he was with corselet, cuissarts, and headpiece, he sank to trouble them no more.
“Whist!” hissed Mr. Blood to his waiting rebels-convict. “Come on, now, and without noise.”
Within five minutes they had swarmed aboard, the entire twenty of them overflowing from that narrow gallery and crouching on the quarter-deck itself. Lights showed ahead. Under the great lantern in the prow they saw the black figure of the other sentry, pacing on the forecastle. From below sounds reached them of the orgy on the gun-deck: a rich male voice was singing an obscene ballad to which the others chanted in chorus:
“Y estos son los usos de Castilla y de Leon!”