"
"Of course." The Admiral smiled. "I had guessed it. Whom the gods
would destroy they first make mad."
"Shall we make a sally?" urged Esteban, in his excitement.
"A sally? Through that scrub? That would be to play into their
hands. No, no, we will wait here to receive this attack. Whenever
it comes, it is themselves will be destroyed, and utterly. Have no
doubt of that."
But by evening the Admiral's equanimity was not quite so perfect.
By then the piraguas had made a half-dozen journeys with their loads
of men, and they had landed also - as Don Miguel had clearly observed
through his telescope - at least a dozen guns.
His countenance no longer smiled; it was a little wrathful and a
little troubled now as he turned again to his officers.
"Who was the fool who told me that they number but three hundred
men in all? They have put at least twice that number ashore
already."
Amazed as he was, his amazement would have been deeper had he been
told the truth: that there was not a single buccaneer or a single
gun ashore on Palomas.
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