'"My friend," says he, "if you was to commit murder at someone else's request, would that excuse the crime?"
'"It's not me what's broke the law," says I, "but him which bought the slaves from me."
'"Ye're both guilty. Therefore, neither must profit. The slaves is confiscate to the State."
'Now, I've told ye, sirs, as how I was making no ado about suffering the loss of my lawful profit on the hides. But to be stripped naked, as it were, by that heuck–fingered Spanish gentleman, robbed o' a cargo o' blacks, the worth o' which I had agreed at ten thousand pieces of eight — Od rot my soul! — that was more nor I could stomach. My temper got the better o' me, and I ups and storms in a mighty rage at that fine Castilian nobleman — Don Ruiz Perera de Valdoro y Peñascon — crying shame on him for such iniquity, and demanding that at least he pay me in gold the price o' my slaves.
'The cool villain lets me rant myself out, then shows me his teeth again in another o' his wicked, fleering smiles.
'"My friend," says he, "ye've no cause to make this pother, no cause to complain at all. Why, you heretic fool, let me tell you as I am doing far less than my strict duty, which would be to seize your ship, your crew and your person, and send you to Cadiz or Seville there to purge the heresies wi' which your kind be troubling the world."'
Captain Walker paused there, to compose himself a little from the passion into which his memories had whipped him. He mopped his brow, and took a pull at the bumbo before resuming.
'Od rot me for a coward, but my courage went out o' me like sweat at they words. "Better be robbed," says I to myself, "than be cast into the Fires o' the Faith in a fool's coat." So I takes my leave of his Excellency afore his sense o' duty might get the better o' what he calls his compassion — damn his dirty soul!'
Again he paused, and then went on. 'Ye may be supposing that the end o' my trouble. But bide a while; for it weren't, nor yet the worst.
'I gets back aboard in haste, as ye'll understand. We weighs at once, and slips out to sea without no interference from the forts. But we've not gone above four or five miles, when on our heels comes a carack of a guarda–costa and opens fire on us as soon as ever she's within range. It's my belief she had orders from the muckety Captain–General to sink us. And for why? Because the talk of the Holy Office and the Fires of the Faith was so much bluster. The last thing as that thief would wish would be as they should find out in Spain the ways by which he is becoming rich in the New World.