“Captain,” he said, and as he spoke he pointed to the pursuing ships, “Colonel Bishop holds us.  We’re in no case either to run or fight.”

Blood’s height seemed to increase, as did his sternness.

“Ogle,” said he, in a voice cold and sharp as steel, “your station is on the gun-deck.  You’ll return to it at once, and take your crew with you, or else....”

But Ogle, violent of mien and gesture, interrupted him.

“Threats will not serve, Captain.”

“Will they not?”

It was the first time in his buccaneering career that an order of his had been disregarded, or that a man had failed in the obedience to which he pledged all those who joined him.  That this insubordination should proceed from one of those whom he most trusted, one of his old Barbados associates, was in itself a bitterness, and made him reluctant to that which instinct told him must be done.  His hand closed over the butt of one of the pistols slung before him.

“Nor will that serve you,” Ogle warned him, still more fiercely.  “The men are of my thinking, and they’ll have their way.”

“And what way may that be?”

“The way to make us safe.  We’ll neither sink nor hang whiles we can help it.”

From the three or four score men massed below in the waist came a rumble of approval.  Captain Blood’s glance raked the ranks of those resolute, fierce-eyed fellows, then it came to rest again on Ogle.  There was here quite plainly a vague threat, a mutinous spirit he could not understand.  “You come to give advice, then, do you?” quoth he, relenting nothing of his sternness.

“That’s it, Captain; advice.  That girl, there.”  He flung out a bare arm to point to her.  “Bishop’s girl; the Governor of Jamaica’s niece....  We want her as a hostage for our safety.”

“Aye!” roared in chorus the buccaneers below, and one or two of them elaborated that affirmation.

In a flash Captain Blood saw what was in their minds.  And for all that he lost nothing of his outward stern composure, fear invaded his heart.

“And how,” he asked, “do you imagine that Miss Bishop will prove such a hostage?”

“It’s a providence having her aboard; a providence.  Heave to, Captain, and signal them to send a boat, and assure themselves that Miss is here.  Then let them know that if they attempt to hinder our sailing hence, we’ll hang the doxy first and fight for it after.  That’ll cool Colonel Bishop’s heat, maybe.”

“And maybe it won’t.”  Slow and mocking came Wolverstone’s voice to answer the other’s confident excitement, and as he spoke he advanced to Blood’s side, an unexpected ally.  “Some o’ them dawcocks may believe that tale.”  He jerked a contemptuous thumb towards the men in the waist, whose ranks were steadily being increased by the advent of others from the forecastle.  “Although even some o’ they should know better, for there’s still a few was on Barbados