Yet you think it is for you to come hectoring here, upbraiding us
for a situation that is just the result of your own ineptitude."
He spoke with a restraint which I trust you will agree was admirable
when I tell you that the Spanish fleet guarding the bottle-neck exit
of the great Lake of Maracaybo, and awaiting there the coming forth
of Captain Blood with a calm confidence based upon its overwhelming
strength, was commanded by his implacable enemy, Don Miguel de
Espinosa y Valdez, the Admiral of Spain. In addition to his duty to
his country, the Admiral had, as you know, a further personal
incentive arising out of that business aboard the Encarnacion a year
ago, and the death of his brother Don Diego; and with him sailed his
nephew Esteban, whose vindictive zeal exceeded the Admiral's own.
Yet, knowing all this, Captain Blood could preserve his calm in
reproving the cowardly frenzy of one for whom the situation had not
half the peril with which it was fraught for himself. He turned
from Cahusac to address the mob of buccaneers, who had surged nearer
to hear him, for he had not troubled to raise his voice.
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