In the Captain’s cabin under the poop, to which Miss Bishop had been conducted for safety, Lord Julian was seeking to comfort and encourage her, with assurances that all would yet be well, at the very moment when Don Miguel was stepping aboard.  Lord Julian himself was none so steady, and his face was undoubtedly pale.  Not that he was by any means a coward.  But this cooped-up fighting on an unknown element in a thing of wood that might at any moment founder under his feet into the depths of ocean was disturbing to one who could be brave enough ashore.  Fortunately Miss Bishop did not appear to be in desperate need of the poor comfort he was in case to offer.  Certainly she, too, was pale, and her hazel eyes may have looked a little larger than usual.  But she had herself well in hand.  Half sitting, half leaning on the Captain’s table, she preserved her courage sufficiently to seek to calm the octoroon waiting-woman who was grovelling at her feet in a state of terror.

And then the cabin-door flew open, and Don Miguel himself, tall, sunburned, and aquiline of face, strode in.  Lord Julian span round, to face him, and clapped a hand to his sword.

The Spaniard was brisk and to the point.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said in his own tongue, “or you’ll come by a fool’s end.  Your ship is sinking.”

There were three or four men in morions behind Don Miguel, and Lord Julian realized the position.  He released his hilt, and a couple of feet or so of steel slid softly back into the scabbard.  But Don Miguel smiled, with a flash of white teeth behind his grizzled beard, and held out his hand.

“If you please,” he said.

Lord Julian hesitated.  His eyes strayed to Miss Bishop’s.  “I think you had better,” said that composed young lady, whereupon with a shrug his lordship made the required surrender.

“Come you — all of you — aboard my ship,” Don Miguel invited them, and strode out.

They went, of course.  For one thing the Spaniard had force to compel them; for another a ship which he announced to be sinking offered them little inducement to remain.  They stayed no longer than was necessary to enable Miss Bishop to collect some spare articles of dress and my lord to snatch up his valise.

As for the survivors in that ghastly shambles that had been the Royal Mary, they were abandoned by the Spaniards to their own resources.  Let them take to the boats, and if those did not suffice them, let them swim or drown.  If Lord Julian and Miss Bishop were retained, it was because Don Miguel perceived their obvious value.  He received them in his cabin with great urbanity.  Urbanely he desired to have the honour of being acquainted with their names.

Lord Julian, sick with horror of the spectacle he had just witnessed, commanded himself with difficulty to supply them.  Then haughtily he demanded to know in his turn the name of their aggressor.  He was in an exceedingly ill temper.  He realized that if he had done nothing positively discreditable in the unusual and difficult position into which Fate had thrust him, at least he had done nothing creditable.  This might have mattered less but that the spectator of his indifferent performance was a lady.  He was determined if possible to do better now.