"Nay, nay; let be," interposed Winter, speaking quite calmly, but his lips white, and his eyes glowing sombrely like smouldering fires. "No need to work thyself into a passion, Will Bascomb, until thou hast heard what their lordships have to say. Maybe they have not seen the Captain and know naught of him." "Not seen him? Know naught of him? Why--why--!" spluttered Bascomb. Then he suddenly calmed down. This was no time for disputatiousness or the display of warm feeling between himself and the man who, if haply anything had gone wrong with the Captain, might become the head of them all. Besides, there was wisdom in that suggestion to wait and hear what the Dons had to say before jumping to a conclusion. Thus the little group of Englishmen on the high poop of the _Adventure_ lapsed into sudden silence as the boat drew near; but it was a silence that was ominous, menacing, a silence of set lips and burning eyes, pregnant with dire possibilities for the city and all within it if aught of evil had befallen their Captain therein. For not only was Marshall, rough almost to uncouthness of manner though he was at times, beloved by all there, but also there was the feeling stirring in every breast that it was vitally important to each one of them that the Spaniard must be taught, once and for all, to regard an Englishman's life as sacred, no matter what the circumstances might be under which he might fall into their hands, or however helpless and friendless he might at the moment seem. So it was a very grim-visaged, uncompromising-looking group of Englishmen at whom the newcomers stared upward when the boat arrived within easy hailing-distance and lay upon her oars. An elderly man, attired in the usual mariner's costume of the period, rose in the stern-sheets of the boat and, doffing his cap, opened the conversation by remarking in English: "Good morning, gentlemen! I am Gaspar Pacheco, lately a master of mariners, but now retired from the sea; and I am here to-day to act the part of interpreter between yourselves and the illustrious Senors Don Luis Maria Alfonso Calderon, Governor of the city of Cartagena; Don Ricardo Picador Garcia, Alcalde of Cartagena; Don Hermoso Morillo, our Intendant; Don Sebastian Campana; Don Ferdinand Miguel Pavia; and Don Ramon Sylva, merchants of Cartagena." And as each individual was named he rose in the stern-sheets of the boat, bowed deeply, and seated himself again.