The commandant having agreed to pay five thousand dollars as his own ransom and that of his companions, one of the fat friars was sent on shore to collect the money, having orders to return by noon. He shook his head, and declared that this was impossible.
“It might take four or five days, perhaps a week, to collect such a sum.”
“Very well,” said the captain at last. “By sunset, if the ransom is not brought on board, we shall have a fine bonfire out there,” and he pointed to the town.
“Arra’ now, captain, you may as well cook and eat us at once, for sorrow a dollar have ye left us, and all the crucifixes, and candlesticks, and beautiful images, which we might have pledged for the money, stowed away in your hold!” exclaimed the fat friar, betraying his Hibernian origin, and that he had understood every word which had been spoken.
“Are you an Irishman, and living among these foreigners, and pretending to be one of them?” cried the captain. “If I had known that, I would have clapped on another thousand dollars to your ransom.”
“Sure, captain, dear, it would have been more charitable to have taken them off,” observed the jovial friar. “However, just be after giving me four days, and ye shall resave the dollars all bright and beautiful, though not a quarter of one could all the blessed saints together collect in the whole of our unfortunate town and the circumjacent country.”
The friar’s eye twinkled as he spoke. At last he proposed paying even a larger sum, provided that the captain would prolong the time to five days for its collection. Captain Podgers, eager to get more money, and not suspecting treachery, agreed to the proposal, and Fra Patricio, chuckling in his sleeve, prepared to take his departure.
“Captain, dear,” he said, turning round with a comical look as he reached the gangway, “ye haven’t got a bottle of potheen, the raal cratur, have ye? It would just be after comforting me in my trouble.”
A bottle of Irish whiskey being handed to the friar, he tucked it away in his sleeve, and his boat pulled off towards the shore.
Mr Falconer, who understood Spanish, shortly after this informed the captain that he had discovered, from the prisoners’ conversation, that the object of Friar Patrick in asking for more time to collect the ransom, was that troops might be sent for to protect the town. The captain replied that he would hang his prisoners if any such trick was played.