«You there!» he shouted to Captain Blood. «You and your men go first. And bestir yourselves! We've no mind to drown like rats.»
They went as they were bidden, curses pursuing them and threats of a reckoning to follow.
Either the ruffians aswarm on the deck above were not in the secret of Easterling's intentions, or else a voice of authority forbade them to hinder the departure of Captain Blood and his companions.
In the cock–boat, midway between the two vessels, Hagthorpe found his voice at last.
«On my soul's salvation, Peter, there was a moment when I thought our sands were run.»
«Ay, ay,» said Pitt, with fervour. «And even as it was they might have been.» He swung to Peter Blood, where he sat in the sternsheets. «Suppose that for one reason or another we had not got out in those ten minutes, and Ogle had opened fire in earnest? What, then?»
«Ah!» said Blood. «Our real danger lay in that he wasn't like to do it.»
«But if you so ordered him?»
«Nay, that's just what I forgot to do. All I told him was to loose a blank shot when we had been gone an hour. I thought that however things went it might prove useful. And on my soul, I believe it did. Lord!» He took off his hat, and mopped his brow under the staring eyes of his companions.
«I wonder now if it's the heat that's making me sweat like this.»