“Have I not said that these... that this is a matter personal to me?”

“Ah!  And their names?”

Captain Blood’s crisp, authoritative, faintly disdainful manner stirred Levasseur’s quick anger.  The blood crept slowly back into his blenched face, and his glance grew in insolence, almost in menace.  Meanwhile the prisoner answered for him.

“I am Henri d’Ogeron, and this is my sister.”

“D’Ogeron?” Captain Blood stared.  “Are you related by chance to my good friend the Governor of Tortuga?”

“He is my father.”

Levasseur swung aside with an imprecation.  In Captain Blood, amazement for the moment quenched every other emotion.

“The saints preserve us now!  Are you quite mad, Levasseur?  First you molest the Dutch, who are our friends; next you take prisoners two persons that are French, your own countrymen; and now, faith, they’re no less than the children of the Governor of Tortuga, which is the one safe place of shelter that we enjoy in these islands....”

Levasseur broke in angrily: 

“Must I tell you again that it is a matter personal to me?  I make myself alone responsible to the Governor of Tortuga.”

“And the twenty thousand pieces of eight?  Is that also a matter personal to you?”

“It is.”

“Now I don’t agree with you at all.”  Captain Blood sat down on the cask that Levasseur had lately occupied, and looked up blandly.  “I may inform you, to save time, that I heard the entire proposal that you made to this lady and this gentleman, and I’ll also remind you that we sail under articles that admit no ambiguities.  You have fixed their ransom at twenty thousand pieces of eight.  That sum then belongs to your crews and mine in the proportions by the articles established.  You’ll hardly wish to dispute it.  But what is far more grave is that you have concealed from me this part of the prizes taken on your last cruise, and for such an offence as that the articles provide certain penalties that are something severe in character.”

“Ho, ho!” laughed Levasseur unpleasantly.  Then added:  “If you dislike my conduct we can dissolve the association.”

“That is my intention.  But we’ll dissolve it when and in the manner that I choose, and that will be as soon as you have satisfied the articles under which we sailed upon this cruise.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll be as short as I can,” said Captain Blood.  “I’ll waive for the moment the unseemliness of making war upon the Dutch, of taking French prisoners, and of provoking the anger of the Governor of Tortuga.  I’ll accept the situation as I find it.  Yourself you’ve fixed the ransom of this couple at twenty thousand pieces, and, as I gather, the lady is to be your perquisite.  But why should she be your perquisite more than another’s, seeing that she belongs by the articles to all of us, as a prize of war?”