`Good boy!' he remarked; `I'm on the watch.' "Dinner was brought in, and wine in abundance. The corregidor, after sparingly partaking of some food and wine, departed with some of his followers, leaving, however, live in the cabin, who at once made themselves at home, laughing, and singing, and talking at their ease, trying to make the captain and officers drink with them. I observed that they did not swallow nearly as much as they pretended to take, and that the flasks but slowly became empty. They kept on their cloaks, and I caught sight of the scabbards of their swords and of a long dagger in the belt of one of them. Still we mustered twenty-seven men, stout and true, on board, so that we had nothing to fear from these five Spaniards. As to purchasing the cargo, the object for which they said that they had come, they were, it seemed, too much overcome with wine to talk about the matter. "Leaving them in the cabin, I went on deck, where I found that the captain had served out arms to all the men, and loaded the guns ready for action. Some of our people were sent below, others lounged about the deck with their weapons concealed under their clothes. He had good reason for this precaution, for as I looked over the side I saw two boats pulling off towards us, one containing twenty or thirty men, the other near a hundred, it seemed. "The corregidor, in the smaller boat, was the first to come alongside and to step on board with all imaginable frankness and cordiality. He had brought with him some dozen or more Biscayan merchants, who were desirous of trading with their friends the English. "`If these are Biscayan merchants, they have a very martial look about them,' observed the captain to one of our officers. `Now, Senhor Corregidor,' he continued, `you'll understand that no more of those gentry come up the side; they crowd our decks and incommode the men in their duties.' "The corregidor with many a grin agreed to this, but still the boats remained alongside. Our captain on this was about to order them off, when Senhor Corregidor whips out a white wand of office, and cries out in a loud voice, `Yield, for you are our prisoners,' while the seeming merchants draw their daggers and swords and present them at the captain's breast. "`We are betrayed, lads!' he shouts, knocking up the weapons with a handspike.