Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/170

had been the painted arms of Spain, but a dagger had scraped and scratched it nearly out of sight.

Captain Morgan sat behind a broad table of which each leg was a curious carved lion, and around him, seated on stools, were the thirty leaders of his fleet and army. They waited impatiently for his communication.

There was the short, serious Captain Sawkins, whose eyes burned with the fervor of Puritanism. He justified his murders with Scripture and offered prayers of thanksgiving from a gun carriage after a successful rape.

Black Grippo was there, an old man now, and sagging under his unimportant infamies. He had come, finally, to regard his God as a patient policeman whom one might possibly outwit. Lately he had reasoned that he might flee his sins by a general confession and reconfirmation in his mother church, and this he intended to do when one more expedition should provide him with a golden candlestick to bear to the confessing priest by way of peace offering.

Holbert and Tegna, Sullivan and Meyther, sat on stools surrounding Captain Morgan. In a dark corner were two whom the whole Brotherhood knew as inseparables. They were called simply The Burgundian and The Other Burgundian. The first was a little fat man with a face like a red bloated sun. He was nervous and excitable. The slightest public attention threw him into a fit of embarrassment. When he was spoken to his face became redder, and he gave the impression of a bug