The tables had been turned upon him in the very moment of success.

He accepted the situation with the fortitude of a fatalist.
With the utmost calm he enquired: "And now, Senior Capitan ?" "And now," said Captain Blood--to give him the title he had assumed--"being a humane man, I am sorry to find that ye're not dead from the tap we gave you.

For it means that you'll be put to the trouble of dying all over again." "Ah!" Don Diego drew a deep breath.

"But is that necessary ?" he asked, without apparent perturbation.
Captain Blood's blue eyes approved his bearing.

"Ask yourself," said he.
"Tell me, as an experienced and bloody pirate, what in my place would you do, yourself ?" "Ah, but there is a difference." Don Diego sat up to argue the matter.
"It lies in the fact that you boast yourself a humane man." Captain Blood perched himself on the edge of the long oak table.