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hard as a Chinese riddle,” said Captain Greybagges kindly, “so yez don’t need to prove it, especially by fighting with vegetables.” Blue Peter and Bulbous Bill chuckled and Israel Feet looked daggers at them through still-teary eyes.
    â€œWell, Izzie cannot speak yet, but he can listen,” said Bulbous Bill, “so perhaps I might tell yez what the man Denzil had to say, though it be not great good news.”
    Blue Peter got up and checked the taproom and front bar for potential eavesdroppers and sat back down, nodding for Bulbous Bill to continue.
    â€œThe man Denzil has spoke with his brujo pal,” Bulbous Bill said in a low voice, his fellow-buccaneers leaning forward to listen. “It would seem that them sorcerers are just as fond o’ a golden coin as anybody else, so he was willin’ to pass along anything he might hear. Trouble is, he’s only heard of a fleet carryin’ crockery. Seems to me that crockery is hardly worth our effort to plunder, but yez may think otherwise.”
    â€œHmm, crockery,” mused Blue Peter. “It has a ready market, that cannot be denied. It is not of great intrinsic value, though, even if it is fine porcelain from far Cathay, embellished with blue-painted scenes of that mysterious land. Bulky and breakable, too. Not the easiest of loot to plunder and transport.”
    â€œTell me, Bill,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges slowly, “did your friend Denzil actually say ‘crockery’? Did he use that precise word?”
    â€œWhy, no, Cap’n,” said Bulbous Bill. “He said it were plates.”
    Captain Greybagges looked at Bulbous Bill for several seconds, then he began
to laugh. He laughed until his face turned red, he laughed until he had a coughing fit and Blue Peter had to pound him on the back. His three lieutenants stared at him in amazement. At last he gained control of himself, blowing his nose on a black silk handkerchief pulled from his sleeve. He shook his head, still grinning, and put a finger to his lips.
    â€œOh, Bill! But you are a caution, and no mistake!” He gestured for them to lean closer to him and whispered “It is surely the Spanish Plate Fleet. Plate meaning silver, from the Spanish plata . Oh, my! This is a great good fortune indeed!”
    The Captain’s three lieutenants stared at him open-mouthed, then, as the meaning of his words came clear to them, their open mouths curved into great smiles. Great wolfish piratical smiles.
    â€œOh deary me!” whispered Blue Peter, “I am ashamed that I did not spot that. Plate, of course, from the Spanish plata , meaning silver, from the Greek plato , meaning wide. Obvious when one sees it.”
    â€œHow come wide gets to mean silver? Look’ee.” said Israel Feet in a hoarse voice, his throat still burning from the pepper.
    â€œIt is because the minting of coins involves taking little lumps of silver and bashing them flat with a hammer. Thus they are made wide, and the word has come to mean all silver in Spanish when once it meant just coinage.” said Blue Peter. “The silver of the Plate Fleet will be mainly in ingots, though, each one weighing sixteen and one-half pounds. I’ve seen them before, and they are a very cheery sight to a gentleman of fortune, a very cheery sight indeed. The Spanish Plate Fleet sails once a year and takes the whole year’s production of silver from the Spanish Americas to King Carlos’s treasurehouse in Bilbao. That is a large quantity of silver by any standards.”
    The four freebooters considered this in silence for several minutes, occasionally sipping their mugs of ale and staring into space.
    â€œTell me, Bill,” said Captain Greybagges at last, “did your pal tell you the times of the sailin’ and the routes that the fleet may take?”
    â€œNope, but he did say that the fleet will be anchorin’ overnight in Nombre Dios Bay on