Among the buccaneers that night there was hilarity over the sudden abatement of M. de Rivarol’s monstrous pride.  But when the next dawn broke over Cartagena, they had the explanation of it.  The only ships to be seen in the harbour were the Arabella and the Elizabeth riding at anchor, and the Atropos and the Lachesis careened on the beach for repair of the damage sustained in the bombardment.  The French ships were gone.  They had been quietly and secretly warped out of the harbour under cover of night, and three sails, faint and small, on the horizon to westward was all that remained to be seen of them.  The absconding M. de Rivarol had gone off with the treasure, taking with him the troops and mariners he had brought from France.  He had left behind him at Cartagena not only the empty-handed buccaneers, whom he had swindled, but also M. de Cussy and the volunteers and negroes from Hispaniola, whom he had swindled no less.

The two parties were fused into one by their common fury, and before the exhibition of it the inhabitants of that ill-fated town were stricken with deeper terror than they had yet known since the coming of this expedition.

Captain Blood alone kept his head, setting a curb upon his deep chagrin.  He had promised himself that before parting from M. de Rivarol he would present a reckoning for all the petty affronts and insults to which that unspeakable fellow — now proved a scoundrel — had subjected him.

“We must follow,” he declared.  “Follow and punish.”

At first that was the general cry.  Then came the consideration that only two of the buccaneer ships were seaworthy — and these could not accommodate the whole force, particularly being at the moment indifferently victualled for a long voyage.  The crews of the Lachesis and Atropos and with them their captains, Wolverstone and Yberville, renounced the intention.  After all, there would be a deal of treasure still hidden in Cartagena.  They would remain behind to extort it whilst fitting their ships for sea.  Let Blood and Hagthorpe and those who sailed with them do as they pleased.

Then only did Blood realize the rashness of his proposal, and in attempting to draw back he almost precipitated a battle between the two parties into which that same proposal had now divided the buccaneers.  And meanwhile those French sails on the horizon were growing less and less.  Blood was reduced to despair.  If he went off now, Heaven knew what would happen to the town, the temper of those whom he was leaving being what it was.  Yet if he remained, it would simply mean that his own and Hagthorpe’s crews would join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable.  Unable to reach a decision, his own men and Hagthorpe’s took the matter off his hands, eager to give chase to Rivarol.  Not only was a dastardly cheat to be punished but an enormous treasure to be won by treating as an enemy this French commander who, himself, had so villainously broken the alliance.