Captain Blood gave no hint that he was so much as touched by that insulting speech. He stooped to the massive chests, unlocked each in turn, and cast a casual yet appraising glance over the gleaming contents. Then he beckoned his shipmaster forward. 'Jerry, here is the gold. See it stowed.' Almost disdainfully he added: 'We assume the count to be correct.'
Thereupon he turned to the poop and to the scarlet figure at the rail, and raised his voice. 'My Lord Cardinal, the ransom has been received and the Captain–General's barge waits to take you ashore. You have but to pledge me your word that I shall be allowed to depart without let, hindrance, or pursuit.'
Under his little black moustachios the Captain–General's lip curled in a little smile. The slyness of the man displayed itself in the terms, so calculated to avert suspicion, in which he chose to give expression to his venom.
'You may now depart without let or hindrance, you rogue. But if ever we meet again upon the seas, as meet we shall…'
He left his sentence there. But Captain Blood completed it for him. 'It is probable that I shall have the satisfaction of hanging you from that yard–arm, like the forsworn, dishonoured thief that you are, you gentleman of Spain.'
At the head of the companion the advancing Cardinal paused to reprove him for those words.
'Captain Blood, that threat is as ungenerous as I hope the terms of it are untrue.'
Don Ruiz caught his breath, aghast, more enraged even by the reproof than by the offensive terms of the threat that had provoked it.
'You hope!' he cried. 'Your Eminence hopes!'
'Wait!' Slowly the Cardinal descended the steps of the companion, his monks, following him, and came to stand in the waist, a very incarnation of the illimitable power and majesty of the Church.