"
He stalked out, and his three captains - although they thought him
mad - rolled after him in loyal silence.
M. de Rivarol was gasping like a landed fish. The stark truth had
robbed him of speech. When he recovered, it was to thank Heaven
vigorously that the council was relieved by Captain Blood's own act
of that gentleman's further participation in its deliberations.
Inwardly M. de Rivarol burned with shame and rage. The mask had been
plucked from him, and he had been held up to scorn - he, the General
of the King's Armies by Sea and Land in America.
Nevertheless, it was to Cartagena that they sailed in the middle of
March. Volunteers and negroes had brought up the forces directly
under M. de Rivarol to twelve hundred men. With these he thought
he could keep the buccaneer contingent in order and submissive.
They made up an imposing fleet, led by M. de Rivarol's flagship, the
Victorieuse, a mighty vessel of eighty guns. Each of the four other
French ships was at least as powerful as Blood's Arabella, which
was of forty guns.
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