Messengers from San Patrico arriving at regular intervals throughout Monday brought reports that showed how faithfully Wolverstone was fulfilling his instructions. The messages gave assurance that the constant fire of the fort was compelling the pirates to keep their distance.
It was heartening news to the Captain–General, persuaded that every hour that passed increased the chances that the raiders would be caught red–handed by the Admiral of the Ocean–Sea, who must be somewhere in the neighbourhood, and incontinently destroyed. 'By tomorrow,' he said, 'Vargas will be at San Patrico with the reinforcements and the pirates' chance of landing will be at an end.'
But what the morrow brought was something very different from the expectations of all concerned. Soon after daybreak, San Juan was awakened by the roar of guns. Don Sebastian's first uplifting thought, as he thrust a leg out of bed, was that here was the Marquis of Riconete announcing his return by a fully royal salute. The continuous bombardment, however, stirred his misgivings even before he reached the terrace of his fine house. Once there, and having seen what his telescope could show him in detail, his misgivings were changed to stark consternation.
Captain Blood's first awakening emotions had been the very opposite to Don Sebastian's. But his annoyed assumptions were at once dismissed. Even if Wolverstone should have left San Patrico before midnight, which was unlikely, it was impossible, in the teeth of the keen westerly wind now blowing, that he could reach San Juan for another twelve hours. Moreover, Wolverstone was not the man to act in such careless disregard of his instructions.
Half dressed, Captain Blood made haste to seek at Don Sebastian's side the explanation of this artillery, and there experienced a consternation no whit inferior to the Captain–General's, though vastly different of source. For the great red ship whose guns were pounding the fort from the roads, a half–mile away, had all the appearance of his own Arabella, which he had left careened in Tortuga less than a month ago.
He remembered the false current tale of a raid by Captain Blood on Cartagena, and he asked himself was it possible that Pitt and Dyke and other associates whom he had left behind had gone roving in his absence, conducting their raids with inhuman cruelties such as those which had disgraced Morgan and Montbars. He could not believe it of them; and yet here stood his ship under a billowing cloud of smoke from her own gunfire, delivering broadsides that were bringing down the walls of a fort that had the appearance of being massive and substantial, but the mortar of which, as he had been glad to ascertain when inspecting it, was mere adobe.
At his side the Captain–General of Puerto Rico was invoking alternately all the saints in the calendar and all the fiends in Hell to bear witness that here was that incarnate devil Captain Blood.
Tight–lipped, that incarnate devil at his very elbow gave no heed to his imprecations. With a hand to his brow, so as to shade his eyes from the morning sun, he scanned the lines of that red ship from gilded beak–head to towering poop. It was the Arabella, and yet it was not the Arabella. The difference eluded him, yet a difference he perceived.
As he looked, the great vessel came broadside on in the act of going about. Then, even without counting her gunports, he obtained a clear assurance. She carried four guns less than his own flagship.
'That is not Captain Blood,' he said.