I was his debtor, as was my friend.

We are quits up to now.
What more we accept from him, we shall be bound to repay,--no more." The Don frowned, and then smiled, and then with a quiet gesture raised his hand to his helmet.
Accepting this salute as a dismissal, Ludar took my arm and walked away.
No more was said about me just then; but I think, after what passed, the Don, however much he disliked me, deemed it not worth his while to separate me from my comrade.
Ludar told me, what he never told the Don, that he had been captured as he returned in the cock-boat by a boat of the enemy's, belonging to the ship _Revenge_.

The men of the boat, perceiving him to be of their speech, and suspecting he carried news (though he had hidden his letter in his shoe), resolved to carry him to their Captain Drake, to which he seemed to submit.

But waiting till he came somewhere near where he suspected the _Rata_ to lie, he had slipped overboard, and hanging quietly under the stern-sheets till they were tired of looking for him, had got off; and after beating about an hour and more, had sighted us in the dawn, and (as he confessed), but for my sight of him, might not have been there to tell the story.
Well, after that, for two days, the weather remained calm; and, as I said, the Spaniard, though now and again he had the better of the breeze, could do little with the enemy which hung doggedly on his skirts, sometimes coming near enough for a broadside, but never, as the impatient gallants on the _Rata_ prayed he might do, running in to close quarters.

'Twas pitiful to hear the grinding of noble teeth on board the ship, as day by day the English Admiral plucked his Majesty's feathers one by one, yet never gave a chance of a battle.