His mind went back over the adventure of yesterday, if of yesterday it was.  He was clear on the matter of the easily successful raid upon the Island of Barbados; every detail stood vividly in his memory up to the moment at which, returning aboard, he had stepped on to his own deck again.  There memory abruptly and inexplicably ceased.

He was beginning to torture his mind with conjecture, when the door opened, and to Don Diego’s increasing mystification he beheld his best suit of clothes step into the cabin.  It was a singularly elegant and characteristically Spanish suit of black taffetas with silver lace that had been made for him a year ago in Cadiz, and he knew each detail of it so well that it was impossible he could now be mistaken.

The suit paused to close the door, then advanced towards the couch on which Don Diego was extended, and inside the suit came a tall, slender gentleman of about Don Diego’s own height and shape.  Seeing the wide, startled eyes of the Spaniard upon him, the gentleman lengthened his stride.

“Awake, eh?” said he in Spanish.

The recumbent man looked up bewildered into a pair of light-blue eyes that regarded him out of a tawny, sardonic face set in a cluster of black ringlets.  But he was too bewildered to make any answer.

The stranger’s fingers touched the top of Don Diego’s head, whereupon Don Diego winced and cried out in pain.

“Tender, eh?” said the stranger.  He took Don Diego’s wrist between thumb and second finger.  And then, at last, the intrigued Spaniard spoke.

“Are you a doctor?”

“Among other things.”  The swarthy gentleman continued his study of the patient’s pulse.  “Firm and regular,” he announced at last, and dropped the wrist.  “You’ve taken no great harm.”

Don Diego struggled up into a sitting position on the red velvet couch.

“Who the devil are you?” he asked.  “And what the devil are you doing in my clothes and aboard my ship?”

The level black eyebrows went up, a faint smile curled the lips of the long mouth.

“You are still delirious, I fear.  This is not your ship.  This is my ship, and these are my clothes.”

“Your ship?” quoth the other, aghast, and still more aghast he added:  “Your clothes?  But... then....”  Wildly his eyes looked about him.  They scanned the cabin once again, scrutinizing each familiar object.  “Am I mad?” he asked at last.  “Surely this ship is the Cinco Llagas?”

“The Cinco Llagas it is.”

“Then....”  The Spaniard broke off.  His glance grew still more troubled.  “Valga me Dios!” he cried out, like a man in anguish.  “Will you tell me also that you are Don Diego de Espinosa?”

“Oh, no, my name is Blood — Captain Peter Blood.  This ship, like this handsome suit of clothes, is mine by right of conquest.  Just as you, Don Diego, are my prisoner.”

Startling as was the explanation, yet it proved soothing to Don Diego, being so much less startling than the things he was beginning to imagine.