“Ah,” said one of the friars, “that you could be brought, senors, to render thanks for your miraculous preservation to her to whom alone it is due, Mary, the fount of mercies!”

“We have done well enough without her as yet,” said Amyas, bluntly.

“The Lord raised up Nebuchadnezzar of old to punish the sins of the Jewish Church; and He has raised up these men to punish ours!” said Fray Gerundio.

“But Nebuchadnezzar fell, and so may they,” growled the other to himself.  Jack overheard him.

“I say, my lord bishop,” called he from the other end of the table.  “It is our English custom to let our guests be as rude as they like; but perhaps your lordship will hint to these two friars, that if they wish to keep whole skins, they will keep civil tongues.”

“Be silent, asses! mules!” shouted the bishop, whose spirits were improving over the wine, “who are you, that you cannot eat dirt as well as your betters?”

“Well spoken, my lord.  Here’s the health of our saintly and venerable guest,” said Cary:  while the commandant whispered to Amyas, “Fat old tyrant!  I hope you have found his money—­for I am sure he has some on board, and I should be loath that you lost the advantage of it.”

“I shall have to say a few words to you about that money this morning, commandant:  by the by, they had better be said now.  My lord bishop, do you know that had we not taken this ship when we did, you had lost not merely money, as you have now, but life itself?”

“Money?  I had none to lose!  Life?—­what do you mean?” asked the bishop, turning very pale.

“This, sir.  That it ill befits one to lie, whose throat has been saved from the assassin’s knife but four hours since.  When we entered the stern-gallery, we found two persons, now on board this ship, in the very act, sir, and article, of cutting your sinful throat, that they might rob you of the casket which lay beneath your pillow.  A moment more, and you were dead.  We seized and bound them, and so saved your life.  Is that plain, sir?”

The bishop looked steadfastly and stupidly into Amyas’s face, heaved a deep sigh, and gradually sank back in his chair, dropping the glass from his hand.

“He is in a fit!  Call in the surgeon!  Run!” and up jumped kind-hearted Jack, and brought in the surgeon of the galleon.

“Is this possible, senor?” asked the commandant.

“It is true.  Door, there!  Evans! go and bring in that rascal whom we left bound in his cabin!”

Evans went, and the commandant continued—­

“But the stern-gallery?  How, in the name of all witches and miracles, came your valor thither?”

“Simply enough, and owing neither to witch nor miracle.  The night before last we passed the mouth of the bay in our two canoes, which we had lashed together after the fashion I had seen in the Moluccas, to keep them afloat in the surf.  We had scraped the canoes bright the day before, and rubbed them with white clay, that they might be invisible at night; and so we got safely to the Morro Grande, passing within half a mile of your ship.”