“Then Humphrey Bold may go hang,” he said, and with a smile that made me feel wondrous uneasy he shut the door upon me and departed.

Of all the mischances I had suffered, this was, I thought, the most afflicting.  In the others it was only myself that was concerned, and a man who sets out to conquer fortune must expect his share of buffets by the way.  But my own ill hap was as nothing compared with the dangers I felt to be hovering about Mistress Lucy, and to know myself helpless when she was in sore need was as a crushing weight upon my heart.

I was not left long to my reflections.  Presently Vetch returned with two villainous-looking ruffians, seamen by their build, who at his orders bound my hands behind me and then conveyed me across a stretch of pasture land to a wooden house that stood in the angle of a field.  They took me up a flight of steps on to a veranda, through one room into another, furnished with a table, a chair, and a bed, and there left me.

“I warn you once more,” I said to Vetch before he went.  “You are dealing with a king’s officer, and if you think this outrage will go unpunished you are mistaken, and very grievously.  And I tell you, Vetch, that if Mistress Lucy suffer a jot at your hands, either in herself, or in her property, you shall hang for it, as sure as my name is Humphrey Bold.”

He smiled, swept me a bow and was gone.

The chamber in which I was left was an inner apartment, such as are common in the houses in Jamaica, enclosed by other rooms, to defend it from the heat.  It had but one door, and was illuminated by a little window high up in the partition wall.  Escape was impossible save through the door, and I knew by the sound of voices from without that the two men had been stationed there to keep guard over me.  They brought me some food by and by, one of them carrying it into the room, the other standing at the door with a musket in his hand, and I perceived that he had a hanger at his belt.  To attempt to overpower them and escape would be madness; but I thought it might not be impossible to prevail on them by means of a bribe to help me, and with that ultimate design I resolved to open friendly communications with them.

“What house is this?” I said.

“Look ’ee, master, drink your bumbo and say nought,” he growled.

“Come, come,” I said pleasantly, “you are a tar, as any one can see, and as good a seaman, I doubt not, as ever slept upon foc’s’le.  Two years ago I was a swab myself—­”

“Splutter and oons!” cried the man, interrupting me, “who be you a-calling swab, I’d like to know!”

“No offense,” I said, “I was just going to tell you of the fun we had, my mates and I, when we were prisoners in France, and how we escaped and had a running fight with Duguay-Trouin—­”

“That’s a good un!” he cried.

“Hark to him, Jack:  says he had a fight with Doggy Trang.”

“Let’s hear about it,” cries the man he had called Jack.