Bernardo Galvez was sorely troubled and he looked from Alvarez to the five and then back again.  Alvarez sat smiling.  His look was that of one who was right, who knew that he was right, and who knew that others knew it.  Oliver Pollock sitting by the big window, close to the five, was also watching shrewdly in order that he might draw from all this coil some capital for the patriot cause.

“In any event,” said Bernardo Galvez at last, speaking slowly, as if he carefully considered each word, “you were wrong, Don Francisco, to expose this youth to such an encounter.  If, as you say, it was merely a little sport, then the sport was ill-chosen and ill-timed.  Whether that or another was your purpose, it reflects upon your judgment and sense of humanity.”

He paused, and Alvarez flushed darkly, but he was still master of his supple self.

“Your words are none too severe, Your Excellency,” he said.  “I did indeed do a foolish thing.  It was a thoughtless impulse.”

“But,” resumed Galvez, as if Alvarez had not spoken, “you are an officer high in the service of His Majesty, and these who accuse you are strangers belonging to another race.  They do not bring the proof of their charges, and the fact that they have violently seized and put to their own use the property of Spain cannot be denied, as the boat is now anchored at the levee.”

Francisco Alvarez and Braxton Wyatt lifted their chins in triumph and the five were downcast.  But the face of Oliver Pollock, the shrewd merchant and far-seeing judge of affairs and men, showed nothing.

“Therefore,” continued the Governor General, “the boat must be returned at once to Don Francisco, and for the present those who seized it must be the prisoners of Spain.”

Paul was about to spring up in protest, but Henry’s hand on his arm held him down.  Oliver Pollock, too, gave him a warning glance.  Yet the triumphant looks of the Spanish captain and the renegade were hard to bear.

“On the other hand,” continued the Governor General, still weighing his words, “the actions of Don Francisco have not been beyond rebuke.  He seems to have regarded those from Kaintock as the prisoners of himself and not of Spain.  He made no report of these matters to me, his superior officer, and he has lingered at his place of Beaulieu as if he were subject to no orders save those of his own will.”

Alvarez again flushed and raised his hand in protest, but Bernardo Galvez went on, disregarding him: 

“Because these offenses give some color to the charges against him, it is my order that he be relieved for the present of his command, and that he do not depart, under any circumstance, from the City of New Orleans until he receive further instructions.”

Alvarez, sprang up in anger, but a commanding gesture from the Governor General waved him down in silence.

“I do not wish to hear any protests, Don Francisco,” he said, “but I do intend to look further into these matters.”