It was now a question
whether they should convey the Spaniards thither with them, or turn
them off in a boat to make the best of their way to the coast of
Hispaniola, which was but ten miles off. This was the course urged
by Blood himself.
"There's nothing else to be done," he insisted. "In Tortuga they
would be flayed alive."
"Which is less than the swine deserve," growled Wolverstone.
"And you'll remember, Peter," put in Hagthorpe, "that boy's threat
to you this morning. If he escapes, and carries word of all this
to his uncle, the Admiral, the execution of that threat will become
more than possible."
It says much for Peter Blood that the argument should have left him
unmoved. It is a little thing, perhaps, but in a narrative in which
there is so much that tells against him, I cannot - since my story
is in the nature of a brief for the defence - afford to slur a
circumstance that is so strongly in his favour, a circumstance
revealing that the cynicism attributed to him proceeded from his
reason and from a brooding over wrongs rather than from any natural
instincts.
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