He turned again to face Miss Bishop.

“I came out here,” he said, “to put down piracy.  But — blister me! - I begin to think that the French are right in desiring piracy to continue as a curb upon these Spanish scoundrels.”

He was to be strongly confirmed in that opinion before many hours were past.  Meanwhile their treatment at the hands of Don Miguel was considerate and courteous.  It confirmed the opinion, contemptuously expressed to his lordship by Miss Bishop, that since they were to be held to ransom they need not fear any violence or hurt.  A cabin was placed at the disposal of the lady and her terrified woman, and another at Lord Julian’s.  They were given the freedom of the ship, and bidden to dine at the Admiral’s table; nor were his further intentions regarding them mentioned, nor yet his immediate destination.

The Milagrosa, with her consort the Hidalga rolling after her, steered a south by westerly course, then veered to the southeast round Cape Tiburon, and thereafter, standing well out to sea, with the land no more than a cloudy outline to larboard, she headed directly east, and so ran straight into the arms of Captain Blood, who was making for the Windward Passage, as we know.  That happened early on the following morning.  After having systematically hunted his enemy in vain for a year, Don Miguel chanced upon him in this unexpected and entirely fortuitous fashion.  But that is the ironic way of Fortune.  It was also the way of Fortune that Don Miguel should thus come upon the Arabella at a time when, separated from the rest of the fleet, she was alone and at a disadvantage.  It looked to Don Miguel as if the luck which so long had been on Blood’s side had at last veered in his own favour.

Miss Bishop, newly risen, had come out to take the air on the quarter-deck with his lordship in attendance — as you would expect of so gallant a gentleman — when she beheld the big red ship that had once been the Cinco Llagas out of Cadiz.  The vessel was bearing down upon them, her mountains of snowy canvas bellying forward, the long pennon with the cross of St. George fluttering from her main truck in the morning breeze, the gilded portholes in her red hull and the gilded beak-head aflash in the morning sun.

Miss Bishop was not to recognize this for that same Cinco Llagas which she had seen once before — on a tragic day in Barbados three years ago.  To her it was just a great ship that was heading resolutely, majestically, towards them, and an Englishman to judge by the pennon she was flying.  The sight thrilled her curiously; it awoke in her an uplifting sense of pride that took no account of the danger to herself in the encounter that must now be inevitable.

Beside her on the poop, whither they had climbed to obtain a better view, and equally arrested and at gaze, stood Lord Julian.  But he shared none of her exultation.  He had been in his first sea-fight yesterday, and he felt that the experience would suffice him for a very considerable time.  This, I insist, is no reflection upon his courage.