You will have conceived that the pirate threatening San Patrico was the erstwhile flagship of the Spanish Admiral of the Ocean–Sea, now the Andalusian Lass, despatched thither on that business by Captain Blood. Wolverstone had been placed in command of her, and his orders were to maintain his demonstration and keep the miserable little fort of San Patrico in play for forty–eight hours. At the end of that time, and under cover of night, he was to slip quietly away before the arrival of the reinforcements from San Juan, which by then would be well upon their way, and, abandoning the feint, come round at speed to deliver the real blow at the now comparatively defenceless San Juan.

Messengers from San Patrico arriving at regular intervals throughout Monday brought reports that showed how faithfully Wolverstone was fulfilling his instructions. The messages gave assurance that the constant fire of the fort was compelling the pirates to keep their distance.

It was heartening news to the Captain–General, persuaded that every hour that passed increased the chances that the raiders would be caught red–handed by the Admiral of the Ocean–Sea, who must be somewhere in the neighbourhood, and incontinently destroyed. 'By tomorrow,' he said, 'Vargas will be at San Patrico with the reinforcements and the pirates' chance of landing will be at an end.'

But what the morrow brought was something very different from the expectations of all concerned. Soon after daybreak, San Juan was awakened by the roar of guns. Don Sebastian's first uplifting thought, as he thrust a leg out of bed, was that here was the Marquis of Riconete announcing his return by a fully royal salute. The continuous bombardment, however, stirred his misgivings even before he reached the terrace of his fine house. Once there, and having seen what his telescope could show him in detail, his misgivings were changed to stark consternation.

Captain Blood's first awakening emotions had been the very opposite to Don Sebastian's. But his annoyed assumptions were at once dismissed. Even if Wolverstone should have left San Patrico before midnight, which was unlikely, it was impossible, in the teeth of the keen westerly wind now blowing, that he could reach San Juan for another twelve hours. Moreover, Wolverstone was not the man to act in such careless disregard of his instructions.

Half dressed, Captain Blood made haste to seek at Don Sebastian's side the explanation of this artillery, and there experienced a consternation no whit inferior to the Captain–General's, though vastly different of source. For the great red ship whose guns were pounding the fort from the roads, a half–mile away, had all the appearance of his own Arabella, which he had left careened in Tortuga less than a month ago.

He remembered the false current tale of a raid by Captain Blood on Cartagena, and he asked himself was it possible that Pitt and Dyke and other associates whom he had left behind had gone roving in his absence, conducting their raids with inhuman cruelties such as those which had disgraced Morgan and Montbars. He could not believe it of them; and yet here stood his ship under a billowing cloud of smoke from her own gunfire, delivering broadsides that were bringing down the walls of a fort that had the appearance of being massive and substantial, but the mortar of which, as he had been glad to ascertain when inspecting it, was mere adobe.

At his side the Captain–General of Puerto Rico was invoking alternately all the saints in the calendar and all the fiends in Hell to bear witness that here was that incarnate devil Captain Blood.

Tight–lipped, that incarnate devil at his very elbow gave no heed to his imprecations. With a hand to his brow, so as to shade his eyes from the morning sun, he scanned the lines of that red ship from gilded beak–head to towering poop. It was the Arabella, and yet it was not the Arabella. The difference eluded him, yet a difference he perceived.

As he looked, the great vessel came broadside on in the act of going about. Then, even without counting her gunports, he obtained a clear assurance. She carried four guns less than his own flagship.

'That is not Captain Blood,' he said.

'Not Captain Blood? You'll tell me that I am not Sebastian Mendes. Is not his ship named the Arabella?'

'That is not the Arabella.'

Don Sebastian looked him over with a contemptuous, blood–injected eye. Then he proffered his telescope.

'Read the name on the counter for yourself.'

Captain Blood took the glass. The ship was swinging, so as to bring her starboard guns to bear, and her counter came fully into view. In letters of gold, he read there the name Arabella, and his bewilderment was renewed.

'I do not understand,' he said. But the roar of her broadside drowned his words and loosened some further tons of the fort's masonry. And then, at last, the guns of the fort thundered in their turn for the first time. The fire was wild and wide of the mark, but at least it had the effect of compelling the attacking ship to stand off, so as to get out of range.

'By God, they're awake at last!' cried Don Sebastian, with bitter irony.

Blood departed in search of his boots, ordering the scared servants who stood about to find and saddle him a horse.

When, five minutes later, booted, but still not more than half dressed, he was setting his foot to the stirrup, the Captain–General surged beside him. 'It's your responsibility,' he raged. 'Yours and your precious Admiral's. Your fatuous measures have left us defenceless. I hope you'll be able to answer for it. I hope so.'

'I hope so too; and to that brigand, whoever he may be.' Captain Blood spoke through his teeth in an anger more bitter if less boisterous than the Captain–General's. For he was experiencing the condition of being hoist with his own petard and all the emotions that accompany it. He had been at such elaborate and crafty pains to disarm San Juan, merely, it seemed, so as to make it easy for a pestilential interloper to come and snatch from under his very nose the prize for which he played. He could not conjecture the identity of the interloper, but he had more than a suspicion that it was not by mere coincidence that this red ship was named the Arabella, and not a doubt but that her master was the author of those horrors in Cartagena which were being assigned to Captain Blood.

However that might be, what mattered now was to do what might be done so as to frustrate this most inopportune of interlopers. And so, by a singular irony, Captain Blood rode forth upon the hope, rendered forlorn by his own contriving, of organizing the defences of a Spanish place against an attack by buccaneers.

He found the fortress in a state of desolation and confusion. Half the guns were already out of action under the heaped rubble. Of the hundred men that had been left to garrison it, ten had been killed and thirty disabled. The sixty that remained whole were resolute and steady men — there were no better troops in the world than those of the Spanish infantry — but reduced to helplessness by the bewildered incompetence of the young officer in command.

Captain Blood came amongst them just as another broadside shore away twenty yards of ramparts. In the well–like courtyard, half choked with the dust of crumbling masonry and the acrid fumes of gunpowder, he stormed at the officer who ran to meet him.

'Will you keep your company cowering here until men and guns are all buried together in these ruins?'

Captain Araña bridled. He threw a chest. 'We can die at our posts, sir, to pay for your errors.'

'So can any fool. But if you had as much intelligence as impertinence you would be saving some of the guns. They'll be needed presently. Haul a score of them out of this, and have them posted in that cover.' He pointed to a pimento grove less than a half–mile away in the direction of the city. 'Leave me a dozen hands to serve the guns that remain, and take every other man with you. And get your wounded out of this death–trap. When you're in the grove send out for teams of mules, horses, oxen, what you will, against the need for further haulage. Load with canister. Use your wits, man, and waste no time. About it!'