The Baron had just sat down to dinner with M. de Cussy when the negro who waited on them announced Captain Blood.  Peevishly M. de Rivarol bade him be admitted, and there entered now into his presence a spruce and modish gentleman, dressed with care and sombre richness in black and silver, his swarthy, clear-cut face scrupulously shaven, his long black hair in ringlets that fell to a collar of fine point.  In his right hand the gentleman carried a broad black hat with a scarlet ostrich-plume, in his left hand an ebony cane.  His stockings were of silk, a bunch of ribbons masked his garters, and the black rosettes on his shoes were finely edged with gold.

For a moment M. de Rivarol did not recognize him.  For Blood looked younger by ten years than yesterday.  But the vivid blue eyes under their level black brows were not to be forgotten, and they proclaimed him for the man announced even before he had spoken.  His resurrected pride had demanded that he should put himself on an equality with the baron and advertise that equality by his exterior.

“I come inopportunely,” he courteously excused himself.  “My apologies.  My business could not wait.  It concerns, M. de Cussy, Captain Wolverstone of the Lachesis, whom you have placed under arrest.”

“It was I who placed him under arrest,” said M. de Rivarol.

“Indeed!  But I thought that M. de Cussy was Governor of Hispaniola.”

“Whilst I am here, monsieur, I am the supreme authority.  It is as well that you should understand it.”

“Perfectly.  But it is not possible that you are aware of the mistake that has been made.”

“Mistake, do you say?”

“I say mistake.  On the whole, it is polite of me to use that word.  Also it is expedient.  It will save discussions.  Your people have arrested the wrong man, M. de Rivarol.  Instead of the French officer, who used the grossest provocation, they have arrested Captain Wolverstone.  It is a matter which I beg you to reverse without delay.”

M. de Rivarol’s hawk-face flamed scarlet.  His dark eyes bulged.

“Sir, you... you are insolent!  But of an insolence that is intolerable!” Normally a man of the utmost self-possession he was so rudely shaken now that he actually stammered.

“M. le Baron, you waste words.  This is the New World.  It is not merely new; it is novel to one reared amid the superstitions of the Old.  That novelty you have not yet had time, perhaps, to realize; therefore I overlook the offensive epithet you have used.  But justice is justice in the New World as in the Old, and injustice as intolerable here as there.  Now justice demands the enlargement of my officer and the arrest and punishment of yours.  That justice I invite you, with submission, to administer.”

“With submission?” snorted the Baron in furious scorn.