On the night before their departure from Malta, when most of the fleet’s ordinary seamen had been ashore carousing and/or receiving Holy Communion, and most of its officers attending formal dinners, the Cabal had armed themselves with blunderbusses and then worked their way down the aisle, unchaining one pair of slaves at a time and searching them. Turbans, head-rags, and loincloths had been shaken out and groped, jaws and butt-cheeks pried apart, hair combed through or cut off. Jeronimo had scoffed at this—more so after being told it was all because of a warning from a "heretic Frog slave." But he went silent as soon as he saw a complete set of fine lock-picks being drawn out through the anal sphincter of a stocky middle-aged galérien named Gerard. And he remained silent as an increasingly astounding variety of hardware was produced, like conjurors’ tricks, from diverse orifices and bits of clothing. "If I see a granado coming from some man’s nostril I will be no more surprised than I am now," he said. Finally a mirror was found, and then another—confirming Jack’s story. Nyazi was uncharacteristically pensive, and said: "Honor dictates that we send the Investor to Hell forthwith, along with as many of his clan as we can get our daggers into." But El Desamparado flew into a rage that did not abate until he had ranted for the better part of an hour and made many trips up and down the length of the galleot flailing away with a nerf du boeuf.