Steed, however, after the fashion of most Colonial governors, was
willing enough to dull his wits to the extent of accepting the
English seaman's story, disregarding any evidence that might belie
it. He shared the hatred so richly deserved by arrogant, overbearing
Spain that was common to men of every other nation from the Bahamas
to the Main. Therefore he gave the Pride of Devon the shelter she
sought in his harbour and every facility to careen and carry out
repairs.
But before it came to this, they fetched from her hold over a score
of English seamen as battered and broken as the ship herself, and
together with these some half-dozen Spaniards in like case, the
only survivors of a boarding party from the Spanish galleon that
had invaded the English ship and found itself unable to retreat.
These wounded men were conveyed to a long shed on the wharf, and
the medical skill of Bridgetown was summoned to their aid. Peter
Blood was ordered to bear a hand in this work, and partly because
he spoke Castilian - and he spoke it as fluently as his own native
tongue - partly because of his inferior condition as a slave, he
was given the Spaniards for his patients.
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