The letter written, he bade them bring him from among the prisoners the Deputy-Governor of Maracaybo, who had been taken at Gibraltar.  Disclosing its contents to him, he despatched him with it to Don Miguel.

His choice of a messenger was shrewd.  The Deputy-Governor was of all men the most anxious for the deliverance of his city, the one man who on his own account would plead most fervently for its preservation at all costs from the fate with which Captain Blood was threatening it.  And as he reckoned so it befell.  The Deputy-Governor added his own passionate pleading to the proposals of the letter.

But Don Miguel was of stouter heart.  True, his fleet had been partly destroyed and partly captured.  But then, he argued, he had been taken utterly by surprise.  That should not happen again.  There should be no surprising the fort.  Let Captain Blood do his worst at Maracaybo, there should be a bitter reckoning for him when eventually he decided — as, sooner or later, decide he must — to come forth.  The Deputy-Governor was flung into panic.  He lost his temper, and said some hard things to the Admiral.  But they were not as hard as the thing the Admiral said to him in answer.

“Had you been as loyal to your King in hindering the entrance of these cursed pirates as I shall be in hindering their going forth again, we should not now find ourselves in our present straits.  So weary me no more with your coward counsels.  I make no terms with Captain Blood.  I know my duty to my King, and I intend to perform it.  I also know my duty to myself.  I have a private score with this rascal, and I intend to settle it.  Take you that message back.”

So back to Maracaybo, back to his own handsome house in which Captain Blood had established his quarters, came the Deputy-Governor with the Admiral’s answer.  And because he had been shamed into a show of spirit by the Admiral’s own stout courage in adversity, he delivered it as truculently as the Admiral could have desired.  “And is it like that?” said Captain Blood with a quiet smile, though the heart of him sank at this failure of his bluster.  “Well, well, it’s a pity now that the Admiral’s so headstrong.  It was that way he lost his fleet, which was his own to lose.  This pleasant city of Maracaybo isn’t.  So no doubt he’ll lose it with fewer misgivings.  I am sorry.  Waste, like bloodshed, is a thing abhorrent to me.  But there ye are!  I’ll have the faggots to the place in the morning, and maybe when he sees the blaze to-morrow night he’ll begin to believe that Peter Blood is a man of his word.  Ye may go, Don Francisco.”

The Deputy-Governor went out with dragging feet, followed by guards, his momentary truculence utterly spent.

But no sooner had he departed than up leapt Cahusac, who had been of the council assembled to receive the Admiral’s answer.  His face was white and his hands shook as he held them out in protest.