“Dealt fairly?” roared the infuriated Captain.  “You....”  In all his foul vocabulary he could find no epithet to describe his lieutenant.  He caught him a blow that almost sent him sprawling.  The pearls were scattered in the sand.

Cahusac dived after them, his fellows with him.  Vengeance must wait.  For some moments they groped there on hands and knees, oblivious of all else.  And yet in those moments vital things were happening.

Levasseur, his hand on his sword, his face a white mask of rage, was confronting Captain Blood to hinder his departure.

“You do not take her while I live!” he cried.

“Then I’ll take her when you’re dead,” said Captain Blood, and his own blade flashed in the sunlight.  “The articles provide that any man of whatever rank concealing any part of a prize, be it of the value of no more than a peso, shall be hanged at the yardarm.  It’s what I intended for you in the end.  But since ye prefer it this way, ye muckrake, faith, I’ll be humouring you.”

He waved away the men who would have interfered, and the blades rang together.

M. d’Ogeron looked on, a man bemused, unable to surmise what the issue either way could mean for him.  Meanwhile, two of Blood’s men who had taken the place of the Frenchman’s negro guards, had removed the crown of whipcord from his brow.  As for mademoiselle, she had risen, and was leaning forward, a hand pressed tightly to her heaving breast, her face deathly pale, a wild terror in her eyes.

It was soon over.  The brute strength, upon which Levasseur so confidently counted, could avail nothing against the Irishman’s practised skill.  When, with both lungs transfixed, he lay prone on the white sand, coughing out his rascally life, Captain Blood looked calmly at Cahusac across the body.

“I think that cancels the articles between us,” he said.  With soulless, cynical eyes Cahusac considered the twitching body of his recent leader.  Had Levasseur been a man of different temper, the affair might have ended in a very different manner.  But, then, it is certain that Captain Blood would have adopted in dealing with him different tactics.  As it was, Levasseur commanded neither love nor loyalty.  The men who followed him were the very dregs of that vile trade, and cupidity was their only inspiration.  Upon that cupidity Captain Blood had deftly played, until he had brought them to find Levasseur guilty of the one offence they deemed unpardonable, the crime of appropriating to himself something which might be converted into gold and shared amongst them all.

Thus now the threatening mob of buccaneers that came hastening to the theatre of that swift tragi-comedy were appeased by a dozen words of Cahusac’s.

Whilst still they hesitated, Blood added something to quicken their decision.

“If you will come to our anchorage, you shall receive at once your share of the booty of the Santiago, that you may dispose of it as you please.”