Rafael Sabatini

“ Now, we are in no case to fight, as your captain well knew when he abused his parole to steer us into this trap.
“But if we are not in case to fight, neither are we in case to surrender, which would mean our death or worse. If die we must, we wall die fighting. And if we are driven to fight, it is this gun that will open fire on our side.”
And his hand touched the stern-chaser that bore Don Diego stretched across its jaws. ”

“ If you will look from those windows, Don Diego, you will see what appears to be a faint cloud on the horizon. That is the island of Barbados well astern. All day we have been sailing east before the wind with but one intent—to set as great a distance between Barbados and ourselves as possible.
“But now, almost out of sight of land, we are in a difficulty. The only man among us schooled in the art of navigation is fevered, delirious in fact, as a consequence of certain ill-treatment he received ashore before we carried him away with us. ”

“ You know too much,” he said under his breath, and sprang for the captain’s throat.
Tight-locked in each other’s arms, they swayed a moment, then together went down upon the deck, the Spaniard’s feet jerked from under him by the Irishman’s crooked right leg. Don Diego had confidently thought to choke the life out of Captain Blood, and so gain the half-hour that might be necessary to bring up that fine ship that was beating toward them—a Spanish ship perforce, he assumed, since none other would be so boldly cruising in these Spanish waters off Hispaniola. ”

“ In silence they stared with him across the water at that other ship. She had veered a point away from the wind, and was running now on a line that must in the end converge with that of the Cinco Llagas.
“In less than half an hour,” said the captain presently, “we shall have her across our hawse, sweeping our decks with her guns.”
“We can fight,” said the one-eyed giant, Wolverstone, with an oath.
“Fight!” sneered Blood. “Undermanned as we are, mustering a bare thirty men, in what case are we to fight? It’s just suicide, so it is. ”

“ He was standing with Wolverstone, Hagthorpe and Ogle by the stern-chaser that bore the still writhing Don Diego. Ogle kept the gun trained on the long-boat, whilst his mate swung a spluttering fuse, ready to apply it to the touch-hole at the word of command.
Anxious and watchful were the eyes that followed the boat across the intervening waters until it brought up against the black hull of the frigate, and they could make out Esteban going briskly up the ladder. ”

“ To hug the land, and go blundering about what you so aptly call this pestilent archipelago is for us to court disaster, as you can perhaps conceive.
“And so it comes to this: We desire to make for the Dutch settlement of Curaçao as straightly as possible, there to victual our ship and invite adventurers to join us so as to make up a proper complement. Will you pledge me your honor if I release you upon parole that you will navigate us thither? ”

“ However early you may be astir you shall see land ahead, Don Pedro.”
Captain Blood passed on, content, and went to visit Jerry Pitt, his patient, to whose condition Don Diego owed his chance of life. For twenty-four hours now the young navigator had been rid of fever, and so far indeed was he recovered that he complained of his confinement, of the heat in his cabin.
To indulge him Captain Blood consented that he should take the air on deck; and so as the last of the daylight was fading from the sky Jerry Pitt came forth upon the captain’s arm. ”

“ They should have left the island to leeward, heading into the Caribbean and away from the archipelago.
As it was, they would now be forced to pass through it again so as to make Curaçao, and this passage was not to be accomplished without some measure of risk to themselves. At any point between the islands they might come upon an equal or superior craft; whether she were Spanish or English would be equally bad for them, and being undermanned they were in no case to fight. To lessen this risk as far as possible Don Diego directed at first a southerly and then a westerly course ”

“ I can handle a ship tolerably well in action, and there are one or two men of Devon aboard who can assist me; but in the higher mysteries of seamanship and of the art of finding our way over trackless wastes of the ocean we know nothing. ”

“ But there is one chance—one slender chance—of life for us and for you if you will agree to do as I shall bid you.”
Behind him Don Diego laughed aloud, the exaltation of martyrdom on his white face.
“There is no way,” he cried in a vibrant voice. “Provide none for him. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1950, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 73 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”