X: Don Diego explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Honor and Identity

  Don Diego struggles with his honor as a Spanish captain while negotiating for his life and his son's life with the pirate Blood.

• Fate and Free Will

  Don Diego accepts his fate as a prisoner but exercises free will by choosing to navigate for Blood in exchange for freedom.

Characters to notice

• Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez

  Awakens confused and injured, learns he is Blood's prisoner, and agrees to navigate to Curaçao under parole.

• Captain Peter Blood

  Reveals his identity to Don Diego, offers him a choice between death and navigating to Curaçao.

Key passages

• “Oh, no, my name is Blood—Captain Peter Blood. This ship, like this handsome suit of clothes, is mine by right of conquest. Just as you, Don Diego, are my prisoner.”

  Blood introduces himself to Don Diego, explaining that he has taken the ship and clothes by conquest and that Don Diego is his prisoner.

  Blood asserts his identity and dominance over the captured Spaniard.

• “I am sorry to press you in such a matter, Don Diego, but one glass is all that I can give you. If by the time those sands have run out you can propose no acceptable alternative, I shall most reluctantly be driven to ask you to go over the side with your friends.”

  Blood gives Don Diego a half-hour to propose an alternative to death, or he and his men will be forced to walk the plank.

  Blood sets a strict deadline for Don Diego to negotiate his survival.

• “I have thought of an alternative, sir captain; but it depends upon your charity. It is that you put us ashore on one of the islands of this pestilent archipelago, and leave us to shift for ourselves.”

  Don Diego proposes being set ashore on an island as an alternative to execution.

  Don Diego's first attempt to bargain for his life.

• “If you will look from those windows, Don Diego, you will see what appears to be a cloud on the horizon. That is the island of Barbados well astern. All day we have been sailing east before the wind with but one intent—to set as great a distance between Barbados and ourselves as possible.”

  Blood explains that they have been sailing east all day to put distance between themselves and Barbados.

  Blood describes their course and the need for a navigator.

• “Will you pledge me your honour, if I release you upon parole, that you will navigate us thither? If so, we will release you and your surviving men upon arrival there.”

  Blood offers Don Diego freedom in exchange for navigating the ship to Curaçao under parole.

  Blood proposes a deal for Don Diego's navigation skills.

• “I accept.”

  Don Diego agrees to Blood's proposal to navigate to Curaçao.

  Don Diego accepts the terms to save himself and his son.