“But... Are you not Spanish, then?”
“You flatter my Castilian accent. I have the honour to be Irish. You were thinking that a miracle had happened. So it has—a miracle wrought by my genius, which is considerable.”
Succinctly now Captain Blood dispelled the mystery by a relation of the facts. It was a narrative that painted red and white by turns the Spaniard's countenance. He put a hand to the back of his head, and there discovered, in confirmation of the story, a lump as large as a pigeon's egg. Lastly, he stared wild-eyed at the sardonic Captain Blood.
“And my son? What of my son?” he cried out. “He was in the boat that brought me aboard.”
“Your son is safe; he and the boat's crew together with your gunner and his men are snugly in irons under hatches.”
Don Diego sank back on the couch, his glittering dark eyes fixed upon the tawny face above him. He composed himself. After all, he possessed the stoicism proper to his desperate trade. The dice had fallen against him in this venture. The tables had been turned upon him in the very moment of success. He accepted the situation with the fortitude of a fatalist.
With the utmost calm he enquired:
“And now, Senior Capitan?”
“And now,” said Captain Blood—to give him the title he had assumed—“being a humane man, I am sorry to find that ye're not dead from the tap we gave you. For it means that you'll be put to the trouble of dying all over again.”
“Ah!” Don Diego drew a deep breath. “But is that necessary?” he asked, without apparent perturbation.