"Very well," answered Bascomb. "We will manage that for thee, old sea-horse, as natural as life, so that nobody seeing thee being driven along at the head of us shall guess but that thou'rt quaking in thy shoes at every step thou takest. Take charge of him, Dick; he is to be thy prisoner, remember. Bind his hands behind him so firmly that he cannot get away, and just tightly enough to leave a mark. Put a halter round his neck, and hold the end of it in thy hand, and threaten him with thy drawn pistol at every street corner. And now, gentles, to our preparations. Every man of the shore party shall go armed with hanger on hip, a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, a good bow in his hand, and a quiver full of arrows slung over his shoulder. We muster on the main deck twenty minutes hence, and the pinnace, with the interpreter's boat, ought to be sufficient to carry us all from the ship to the wharf." The first half-dozen men who were ready slid down the ship's side into the interpreter's boat so swiftly and silently that they took her astonished crew completely by surprise, and held them in subjection until the rest were ready; then Senor Pacheco, slung in a noose, was lowered down the ship's side, and roughly ordered into the stern-sheets by Dick, who followed him there and kept him in apparent awe with a drawn pistol. Within the twenty minutes all were ready and embarked in the two boats--the pinnace having been lowered in the interim, when they pushed off from the _Adventure_, the attenuated crew of which bade them Godspeed with a hearty cheer--and headed up the harbour toward the north-western half of the town. The distance which they had to pull, in order to reach the wharf indicated by Pacheco, was about three-quarters of a mile, and as they neared the landing-place they perceived that a good many people had gathered, and were watching them curiously; but of soldiers there was not one to be seen, which Bascomb confessed he regarded as rather a bad sign, as the absence of any visible inclination to resist their landing seemed to him to point to the preparation of a trap somewhere on the road. He asked Pacheco what he thought about it. "God forgive me! I know not what to think, most illustrious," answered that worthy. "But I like it not, for I think with you that the Governor would never permit you to land unresisted, had he not prepared a warm reception for you at some point where you will be at even greater disadvantage than you would be on the wharf. And yet I do not know how that could be either, for he has had no means of learning your destination, so how could he know where to set his trap? But, lest he should have guessed, I will lead you by the less direct way, for there are two roads by which it is possible to reach the Inquisition."