“No, Senor; it is hate generally, although they are not all alike.  The real sailors are mostly captured men; they serve to save their lives, and only for these others on board could not be held long.  We do not arm them or use them to board prizes.  It’s those devils amidships who loot; that is all their work to fight and guard these others.  Naturally there’s no love lost between them.  Your plan, Senor, is to set the one against the other?”

“Yes, if possible; I know no other way.  These sailor men are of all races.  Can they be trusted?”

He sat bending forward, his hands on his knees, his dark face far from pleasant.  I had every reason to know the fellow to be criminal, desperate, guilty of everything in the calendar, and yet I must place confidence in him.  Only as we worked together now was there any prospect of success.

“Some might be; it is hard to tell how many.  It is not the race which counts so much, Senor.  There are those among them who would not care to return to honesty.”

“And you, LeVere?”

He spread his hands, and shrugged his shoulders.

“There is no hope of me; I was born to the free life.”

“What then is it with you?”

“Hate, Senor—­revenge,” and his teeth gleamed savagely.  “I would spit on this Manuel who seeks to be chief.  I can never be—–­no; I am of black skin, with negro blood in my veins, and white men would never have it so.  But I can hate, Senor.  That is why I am with you now, if the devil so will.  Your plan might work—­tell me more of it.”

“It is simple enough, LeVere, and came to me but now as I looked upon Estada lying there dead.  Treachery killed him, and that treachery must have purpose behind it.  You believe this to be the ambition of Manuel Estevan to become chief, and that in this he is backed by those buccaneers amidships whom he commands.  But to accomplish this end there must soon be other murders aboard—­the Captain Sanchez, and possibly our own as well, although ’tis likely he may offer us life to join him.  But I doubt if the fellow be ready yet to throw off the mask and openly declare himself.  He will claim the murder of Estada to be the act of some fiendish member of the crew, and wait until things aboard ripen to his purpose.  He is not likely to dream that we suspect him.  This gives us our chance—­we can act before he does.”

“But if the men are with him?”

“What are the odds, say you—­thirty to a hundred?  Ay, but surprise will overcome that.  My plan is this; first, for you and I to secure Manuel, as quietly as possible, but at whatever cost.  Surely that can be done.  With him in our hands, or dead, the buccaneers have no leader.  What then?  There are men in the crew on deck and in the forecastle to be trusted—­Watkins is one, and he will know others, a dozen, no doubt.  They will be enough.  We will whisper the truth to these, and have them ready for a signal.  The forward door from amidships is closed by iron bars—­is it not?”