"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.
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