This time Captain Blood was put out of temper.
"Trouble me no more," he snapped at Cahusac, who came growling to
him again. "Send word to Don Miguel that you have seceded from me.
He'll give you safe conduct, devil a doubt. Then take one of the
sloops, order your men aboard and put to sea, and the devil go
with you."
Cahusac would certainly have adopted that course if only his men had
been unanimous in the matter. They, however, were torn between
greed and apprehension. If they went they must abandon their share
of the plunder, which was considerable, as well as the slaves and
other prisoners they had taken. If they did this, and Captain
Blood should afterwards contrive to get away unscathed - and from
their knowledge of his resourcefulness, the thing, however unlikely,
need not be impossible - he must profit by that which they now
relinquished. This was a contingency too bitter for contemplation.
And so, in the end, despite all that Cahusac could say, the surrender
was not to Don Miguel, but to Peter Blood. They had come into the
venture with him, they asserted, and they would go out of it with
him or not at all.
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