“So you are O’Shea,” and the skipper of the Caronic chuckled. “Take me inside that extraordinary sand-heap of yours, if you please, and talk as long as you like.”
He grasped O’Shea’s arm and they vanished within the empty defences.
“I have come ashore to get at the bottom of this fantastical situation,” said Captain Henderson of the Caronic, whose smile was both friendly and humorous. “The commander of the Spanish cruiser told me to keep my hands off and to go about my business. Cheeky, wasn’t it? He swore he had a nest of bloody pirates cornered on this key, and he expected to capture them to-night.”
“So he decided to turn down my proposition,” muttered O’Shea.
“He referred to it. But his officers were keen to win a bit of glory for themselves, and they argued him the other way round, as I figured it from his heated remarks. He didn’t relish the job of sailing into you chaps. In fact, the black-whiskered don was in a state of mind. Are you, by any chance, a British subject?”
“No, Captain Henderson, but I might find ye a Britisher or two among me crew. I have an assorted company of gentlemen of fortune.”
O’Shea explained matters at some length, and Captain Henderson vehemently interrupted to say:
“I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference whether you are British subjects or not. Blood is thicker than water. Shall I steam away and leave you to be shot on the say-so of a raving Spanish skipper?”
“I should be disappointed in you if ye did,” gravely answered O’Shea. “’Tis not what I would do for you.”
The master of the Caronic permitted O’Shea to finish his narrative.