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And in the stockade, all was likewise in readiness. Hagthorpe, Dyke, and Ogle had agreed to join the venture, and eight others had been carefully recruited. In Pitt's hut, which he shared with five other rebels-convict, all of whom were to join in this bid for liberty, a ladder had been constructed in secret during those nights of waiting.
Three steps he took before he lost his balance and went tumbling into the green depths below. When he came to the surface again, gasping for air, the Cinco Llagas was already some furlongs to leeward. But the roaring cheer of mocking valediction from the rebels-convict reached him across the water, to drive the iron of impotent rage deeper into his soul.
Blood, and thereupon those gentlemen of Spain were induced without further trouble beyond a musket prod or two to drop through a scuttle to the deck below. After that the rebels-convict refreshed themselves with the good things in the consumption of which they had interrupted the Spaniards.
"Why his excellency shall write home an account of your exploit, and maybe some portion of your sentences shall be remitted." "The generosity of King James is well known," sneered Nathaniel Hagthorpe, who was standing by, and amongst the ranged rebels-convict some one ventured to laugh. Colonel Bishop started up. He was pervaded by the first pang of uneasiness.
The seller of the boat had as by law required since the coming of the rebels-convict duly reported the sale at the Secretary's office, so that he might obtain the reimbursement of the ten-pound surety into which every keeper of a small boat was compelled to enter. The Secretary's office postponed this reimbursement until it should have obtained confirmation of the transaction.
A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an end with the downfall of King James. They were saving old Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena the only survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over three years ago in the Cinco Llagas.
Armed as he was with corselet, cuissarts, and headpiece, he sank to trouble them no more. "Whist!" hissed Mr. Blood to his waiting rebels-convict. "Come on, now, and without noise." Within five minutes they had swarmed aboard, the entire twenty of them overflowing from that narrow gallery and crouching on the quarter-deck itself. Lights showed ahead.
Towards the middle of December the Jamaica Merchant dropped anchor in Carlisle Bay, and put ashore the forty-two surviving rebels-convict.
By this time the rebels-convict were coming in, in twos and threes, having abandoned their work upon finding themselves unguarded and upon scenting the general dismay. Kent paused a moment, as his hastily armed guard dashed forth, to fling an order to those slaves. "To the woods!" he bade them. "Take to the woods, and lie close there, until this is over, and we've gutted these Spanish swine."
Captain Blood regarded him steadily out of a face which, if impassive, had paled under its deep tan. About the prisoner, clamant, infuriated, ferocious, the rebels-convict surged, almost literally "athirst for his blood." "Wait," Captain Blood imperiously commanded, and turning on his heel, he went aside to the rail.
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