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Easterling was taken with panic. The high colour receded from his cheeks, his heavy lips grew purple. He vowed that he would see Doctor Blood in hell before he went.

His men assured him that they would see him in hell, and shortly, if he did not go.

Gunning reminded him that Blood could not possibly know what the Santa Barbara carried, and that therefore it should be possible to cozen him into allowing her to go her ways without further molestation.

A gun thundered from the Cinco Llagas, to send a warning shot across the bows of the Santa Barbara. That was enough. Gunning thrust the quartermaster aside, and himself seized the helm and put it over, so that the ship lay hove to, as a first intimation of compliance. After that the buccaneers launched the cockboat and a half-dozen of them swarmed down to man her, whilst, almost at pistol-point, Gunning compelled Captain Easterling to follow them.

When presently he climbed into the waist of the Cinco Llagas where she lay hove to, a cable’s length away across the sunlit waters, there was hell in his eyes and terror in his soul. Straight and tall, in Spanish corselet and headpiece, the despised doctor stood forward to receiv
e him. Behind him stood Hagthorpe and a half-score of his followers. He seemed to smile.

“At last, Captain, ye stand where ye have so long hoped to stand: on the deck of the Cinco Llagas.”

Easterling grunted ragefully for only answer to this raillery. His great hands twitched as if he would have them at his Irish mocker’s throat. Captain Blood continued to address him.

“It’s an ill thing, Captain, to attempt to grasp more than you can comfortably hold. Ye’ll not be the first to find himself empty-handed as a consequence. That was a fine fast-sailing sloop of yours, the Bonaventure. Ye should have been content. It’s a pity that she’ll sail no more; for she’s sunk, or will be entirely at high water.” Abruptly he asked: “How many hands are with you?” and he had to repeat the question before he was sullenly answered that forty men remained aboard the Santa Barabara.

“What boats does she carry?”

“Three with the cock-boat.”

“That should be enough to accommodate your following. Ye’ll order them into those boats at once if you value their lives, for in fifteen minutes from now I shall open fire on the ship and sink her. This because I can spare no men for a prize crew, nor can I leave her afloat to be repossessed by you and turned to further mischief.”

Easterling began a furious protest that was mixed with remonstrances of the peril to him and his of landing on Hispaniola. Blood cropped it short.

“Ye’re receiving such mercy as you probably never showed to any whom ye compelled to surrender. Ye’ld best profit by my tenderness. If the Spaniards, on Hispaniola spare you when you land there, you can get back to your hunting and boucanning, for which ye’re better fitted than the sea. Away with you now.

But Easterling did not at once depart. He stood with feet planted wide, swaying on his powerful legs, clenching and unclenching his hands. At last he took his decision.

“Leave me that ship, and in Tortuga, when I get there, I’ll pay you fifty thousand pieces of eight. That’s better nor the empty satisfaction of turning us adrift.”

“Away with you!” was all that Blood answered him, his tone more peremptory.

“A hundred thousand!” cried Easterling.

“Why not a million?” wondered Blood.”It’s as easily promised, and the promise as easily broken. Oh, I’m like to take your word, Captain Easterling, as like as I am to believe that ye command such a sum as a hundred thousand pieces of eight.”