“But the men?” his lordship interposed in his level, cultured voice.  “This hundred men that Wolverstone has taken with him?”

“They are those of my crew who have no taste for King James’s service, and have preferred to seek work of other kinds.  It was in our compact, my lord, that there should be no constraining of my men.”

“I don’t remember it,” said his lordship, with sincerity.

Blood looked at him in surprise.  Then he shrugged.  “Faith, I’m not to blame for your lordship’s poor memory.  I say that it was so; and I don’t lie.  I’ve never found it necessary.  In any case ye couldn’t have supposed that I should consent to anything different.”

And then the Deputy-Governor exploded.

“You have given those damned rascals in Tortuga this warning so that they may escape!  That is what you have done.  That is how you abuse the commission that has saved your own neck!”

Peter Blood considered him steadily, his face impassive.  “I will remind you,” he said at last, very quietly, “that the object in view was — leaving out of account your own appetites which, as every one knows, are just those of a hangman — to rid the Caribbean of buccaneers.  Now, I’ve taken the most effective way of accomplishing that object.  The knowledge that I’ve entered the King’s service should in itself go far towards disbanding the fleet of which I was until lately the admiral.”

“I see!” sneered the Deputy-Governor malevolently.  “And if it does not?”

“It will be time enough then to consider what else is to be done.”

Lord Julian forestalled a fresh outburst on the part of Bishop.

“It is possible,” he said, “that my Lord Sunderland will be satisfied, provided that the solution is such as you promise.”

It was a courteous, conciliatory speech.  Urged by friendliness towards Blood and understanding of the difficult position in which the buccaneer found himself, his lordship was disposed to take his stand upon the letter of his instructions.  Therefore he now held out a friendly hand to help him over the latest and most difficult obstacle which Blood himself had enabled Bishop to place in the way of his redemption.  Unfortunately the last person from whom Peter Blood desired assistance at that moment was this young nobleman, whom he regarded with the jaundiced eyes of jealousy.

“Anyway,” he answered, with a suggestion of defiance and more than a suggestion of a sneer, “it’s the most ye should expect from me, and certainly it’s the most ye’ll get.”

His lordship frowned, and dabbed his lips with a handkerchief.

“I don’t think that I quite like the way you put it.  Indeed, upon reflection, Captain Blood, I am sure that I do not.”

“I am sorry for that, so I am,” said Blood impudently.  “But there it is.  I’m not on that account concerned to modify it.”

His lordship’s pale eyes opened a little wider.  Languidly he raised his eyebrows.