Don Pedro advanced towards them, superb in his black and silver, seeming to symbolize the pride and majesty of Spain. The thick–set Governor, in pale green taffetas, kept pace with him, and presently, when they had come to a halt before the buccaneers, he addressed them.
«You begin to know, you English dogs, what it means to defy the might of Spain. And you'll know it better before all is done. I deny myself the pleasure of hanging you as I intended, so that you may go to Madrid, to feed a bonfire.»
Wolverstone leered at him. «You are noble,» he said, in execrable, but comprehensible Spanish. «Noble with the nobility of Spain. You insult the helpless.»
The Governor raged at him, calling him the unprintably foul names that come so readily to an angry Spaniard's lips. This until Don Pedro checked him with a hand upon his arm.
«Is this waste of breath worth while?» He spoke disdainfully. «It but serves to detain us in this noisome place.»
The buccaneers stared at him in a sort of wonder. Abruptly he turned on his heel.
«Come, Don Jayme.» His tone was peremptory. «Have them out of this. The San Tomas is waiting, and the tide is on the turn.»
The Governor hesitated, flung a last insult at them, then gave an order to the officer, and stalked after his guest, who was already moving away. The officer transferred the order to his men. With the butts of their pikes and many foul words, the soldiers stirred the buccaneers. They rose with clank of gyves and manacles, and went stumbling out into the clean air and the sunshine, herded by the pikemen. Hangdog, foul, and weary, they dragged themselves across the square, where the palms waved in the sea–breeze, and the islanders stood to watch them pass, and so they came to the mole, where a wherry of eight oars awaited them.
The Governor and his guest stood by whilst they were being packed into the sternsheets, whither the pikemen followed them. Then Don Pedro and Don Jayme took their places in the prow with the Negro, who carried the valise. The wherry pushed off and was rowed across the blue water to the stately ship from whose masthead floated the flag of Spain.
They came bumping along her yellow side at the foot of the entrance–ladder, to which a sailor hitched a boathook.