"
But the Colonel's brute passion thoroughly aroused was not so easily
to be baulked. "If you're alive when my blacks have done with you,
perhaps you'll come to your senses."
He swung to his negroes to issue an order. But it was never issued.
At that moment a terrific rolling thunderclap drowned his voice and
shook the very air. Colonel Bishop jumped, his negroes jumped with
him, and so even did the apparently imperturbable Mr. Blood. Then
the four of them stared together seawards.
Down in the bay all that could be seen of the great ship, standing
now within a cable's-length of the fort, were her topmasts thrusting
above a cloud of smoke in which she was enveloped. From the cliffs
a flight of startled seabirds had risen to circle in the blue,
giving tongue to their alarm, the plaintive curlew noisiest of all.
As those men stared from the eminence on which they stood, not yet
understanding what had taken place, they saw the British Jack dip
from the main truck and vanish into the rising cloud below. A moment
more, and up through that cloud to replace the flag of England soared
the gold and crimson banner of Castile.
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