For what he had suffered at the hands
of Man he had chosen to make Spain the scapegoat. Thus he accounted
that he served a twofold purpose: he took compensation and at the
same time served, not indeed the Stuart King, whom he despised, but
England and, for that matter, all the rest of civilized mankind
which cruel, treacherous, greedy, bigoted Castile sought to exclude
from intercourse with the New World.
One day as he sat with Hagthorpe and Wolverstone over a pipe and a
bottle of rum in the stifling reek of tar and stale tobacco of a
waterside tavern, he was accosted by a splendid ruffian in a
gold-laced coat of dark-blue satin with a crimson sash, a foot wide,
about the waist.
"C'est vous qu'on appelle Le Sang?" the fellow hailed him.
Captain Blood looked up to consider the questioner before replying.
The man was tall and built on lines of agile strength, with a
swarthy, aquiline face that was brutally handsome. A diamond of
great price flamed on the indifferently clean hand resting on the
pummel of his long rapier, and there were gold rings in his ears,
half-concealed by long ringlets of oily chestnut hair.
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