"I don't believe you," he said at last.
"Yet you may.

I am a doctor, and I know death when I see it." Again there came a pause, whilst conviction sank into the lad's mind.
"If I had known that," he said at last in a thick voice, "you would be hanging from the yardarm of the Encarnacion at this moment." "I know," said Blood.

"I am considering it--the profit that a man may find in the ignorance of others." "But you'll hang there yet," the boy raved.
Captain Blood shrugged, and turned on his heel.

But he did not on that account disregard the words, nor did Hagthorpe, nor yet the others who overheard them, as they showed at a council held that night in the cabin.
This council was met to determine what should be done with the Spanish prisoners.

Considering that Curacao now lay beyond their reach, as they were running short of water and provisions, and also that Pitt was hardly yet in case to undertake the navigation of the vessel, it had been decided that, going east of Hispaniola, and then sailing along its northern coast, they should make for Tortuga, that haven of the buccaneers, in which lawless port they had at least no danger of recapture to apprehend.