Such was the fleet of which the gauntlet was to be run by Captain
Blood with his own Arabella of forty guns, the Elizabeth of
twenty-six, and two sloops captured at Gibraltar, which they had
indifferently armed with four culverins each. In men they had a
bare four hundred survivors of the five hundred-odd that had left
Tortuga, to oppose to fully a thousand Spaniards manning the
galleons.
The plan of action submitted by Captain Blood to that council was
a desperate one, as Cahusac uncompromisingly pronounced it.
"Why, so it is," said the Captain. "But I've done things more
desperate." Complacently he pulled at a pipe that was loaded with
that fragrant Sacerdotes tobacco for which Gibraltar was famous,
and of which they had brought away some hogsheads. "And what is
more, they've succeeded. Audaces fortuna juvat. Bedad, they knew
their world, the old Romans."
He breathed into his companions and even into Cahusac some of his
own spirit of confidence, and in confidence all went busily to
work. For three days from sunrise to sunset, the buccaneers
laboured and sweated to complete the preparations for the action
that was to procure them their deliverance.
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