One thing puzzled him. If the Pirate was such a terror to unprotected ships, and strong enough to attack several armed vessels at once, why was Captain Barker running into the very jaws of the enemy? In her palmy days as an East Indiaman the Good Intent had carried a dozen nine-pounders on her upper deck and six on the quarterdeck; and Bulger had said that under a stout captain she had once beaten off near Surat half a dozen three-masted grabs and a score of gallivats from the pirate stronghold at Gheria. But now she had only half a dozen guns all told, and even had she possessed the full armament there were not men enough to work them, for her complement of forty men was only half what it had been when she sailed under the Company's flag. Desmond confided his puzzlement to Bulger. The seaman laughed. "Why, bless 'ee, we en't a-goin' to run into no danger. Trust Cap'n Barker for that. You en't supercargo, to be sure; but who do you think them guns and round shots in the hold be for? Why, the Pirate himself. And he'll pay a good price for 'em, too." "Do you mean to say that English merchants supply Angria with weapons to fight against their own countrymen?" "Well, blest if you en't a innocent. In course they do. The guns en't always fust-class metal, to be sure; but what's the odds? The interlopers ha' got to live." "I don't call that right. It's not patriotic." "Patry what?" "Patriotic--a right way of thinking of one's own country. An Englishman isn't worth the name who helps England's enemies." Bulger looked at him in amazement. The idea of patriotism was evidently new to him. "I'll have to put that there notion in my pipe and smoke it," he said. "I'd fight any mounseer, or Dutchman, or Portuguee as soon as look at him, 'tis on'y natural; but if a mounseer likes to give me twopence for a thing that's worth a penny--why, I'll say thank 'ee and axe him--leastways if there's any matey by as knows the lingo--to buy another." Shortly after dawn next morning the lookout reported four vessels to windward. From their appearance Captain Barker at once concluded that two were Company's ships, with an escort of a couple of grabs. As he was still scanning them he was joined by Diggle, with whom he entered into conversation. "They're making for Bombay, I reckon," said the captain. "I take it we don't wish to come to close quarters with them, Barker?" "By thunder, no! But if we hold our present course we're bound to pass within hailing distance. Better put 'em off the scent." He altered the vessel's course a point or two with the object of passing to windward of the strangers, as if steering for the Portuguese port of Goa. "They are running up their colors," remarked Diggle, half an hour later. "British, as I thought. We'll hoist Portuguese." A minute or two later a puff of smoke was observed to sally from the larger of the two grabs, followed in a few seconds by the boom of a gun.