"My lads, I have called you off from your regular work this morning to engage in a man hunt, or rather a hunt for two women and two men.  You will not need to be reminded by me that one of our chief and most recent causes of dissatisfaction with Ricardo was his extraordinary behaviour in connection with that young sprig of a naval officer whom we captured when we engaged the British war schooner _Francesca_.  Instead of heaving the young cub overboard to the sharks, as he ought to have done, our late chief, for some extraordinary reason which he never condescended to explain to us, chose to keep the young fellow alive, and not only so, but also to give the surgeon the strictest injunctions to nurse him back to health.  This was so totally at variance with his usual practice that, as I have already explained to some of you, there could only be one reason for it, and that reason, I have never had the slightest doubt, was that he had formed a plan to betray us all into the hands of the British.  By saving the young officer's life he hoped not only to use him as a channel of negotiation with the British authorities, but also to purchase immunity from punishment for himself. And having secured this, he would seize the earliest opportunity after our execution to return here and quietly possess himself of the immense hoard of treasure that we have accumulated by years of toil and peril. It was because I was thoroughly convinced of this that I did away with Ricardo; for it was his life or ours that hung in the balance.  But it was not sufficient to put Ricardo out of the way of doing us a mischief; the young English officer remained, and still remains, and until he also is removed there can be no safety for any one of us; and it was this knowledge that caused me to abandon our cruise and return here.