The Captain swung round, and for an instant looked as if he would have struck the gunner.  Then his expression changed:  the light of inspiration Was in his glance.

“Bedad! ye’ve said it.  He doesn’t fear death, this damned pirate; but his son may take a different view.  Filial piety’s mighty strong in Spain.”  He swung on his heel abruptly, and strode back to the knot of men about his prisoner.  “Here!” he shouted to them.  “Bring him below.”  And he led the way down to the waist, and thence by the booby hatch to the gloom of the ’tween-decks, where the air was rank with the smell of tar and spun yarn.  Going aft he threw open the door of the spacious wardroom, and went in followed by a dozen of the hands with the pinioned Spaniard.  Every man aboard would have followed him but for his sharp command to some of them to remain on deck with Hagthorpe.

In the ward-room the three stern chasers were in position, loaded, their muzzles thrusting through the open ports, precisely as the Spanish gunners had left them.

“Here, Ogle, is work for you,” said Blood, and as the burly gunner came thrusting forward through the little throng of gaping men, Blood pointed to the middle chaser; “Have that gun hauled back,” he ordered.

When this was done, Blood beckoned those who held Don Diego.

“Lash him across the mouth of it,” he bade them, and whilst, assisted by another two, they made haste to obey, he turned to the others.  “To the roundhouse, some of you, and fetch the Spanish prisoners.  And you, Dyke, go up and bid them set the flag of Spain aloft.”

Don Diego, with his body stretched in an arc across the cannon’s mouth, legs and arms lashed to the carriage on either side of it, eyeballs rolling in his head, glared maniacally at Captain Blood.  A man may not fear to die, and yet be appalled by the form in which death comes to him.

From frothing lips he hurled blasphemies and insults at his tormentor.

“Foul barbarian!  Inhuman savage!  Accursed heretic!  Will it not content you to kill me in some Christian fashion?” Captain Blood vouchsafed him a malignant smile, before he turned to meet the fifteen manacled Spanish prisoners, who were thrust into his presence.

Approaching, they had heard Don Diego’s outcries; at close quarters now they beheld with horror-stricken eyes his plight.  From amongst them a comely, olive-skinned stripling, distinguished in bearing and apparel from his companions, started forward with an anguished cry of “Father!”

Writhing in the arms that made haste to seize and hold him, he called upon heaven and hell to avert this horror, and lastly, addressed to Captain Blood an appeal for mercy that was at once fierce and piteous.  Considering him, Captain Blood thought with satisfaction that he displayed the proper degree of filial piety.