«Far from it. I'm hoping, for your own sake, that ye're not.»
«Do you think that, forewarned as I was of your coming, I kept the gold at Santa Maria?» He was derisive. «You are too late, Captain Blood. It is already on its way to Panama. We embarked it in canoes during the night, and sent a hundred men to guard it. That is how my garrison comes to be depleted, and that is why I have not hesitated to surrender.»
He laughed again, observing Blood's rueful countenance.
A gust of rage swept through the ranks of the buccaneers pressing behind their leader. The news had run as swiftly as flame over gunpowder, and with similar effect in the explosion it produced. With yells of execration and sinister baring of weapons, they would have flung themselves upon the Spanish commander, who — in their view — had cheated them, and they would have torn him there and then to pieces, had not Blood swung round and made of his own body a shield for Don Domingo.
«Hold!» he commanded, in a voice that blared like a trumpet. «Don Domingo is my prisoner, and I have pledged my word that he shall suffer no violence!»
Yberville it was who fiercely voiced the common thought.
«Will you keep faith with a Spanish dog who has cheated us? Let him be hanged!»
«It was his duty, and I'll have no man hanged for doing no more than that!»
For a moment Blood's voice was drowned in uproar. But he stood his ground impassively, his light eyes stern, his hand upheld, imposing some measure of restraint upon them.
«Silence, there, and listen! You are wasting time. The harm is far from being beyond repair. The gold has but a few hours' start. You, Yberville, and you, Hagthorpe, re–embark your companies at once, and follow. You should come up with them before they reach the Gulf, but even if you don't, it is still a far cry to Panama, and you'll overtake them long before they're in sight of it. Away with you! Wolverstone's company will await your return here with me.»