In the great harbour of Port Royal, spacious enough to have given moorings to all the ships of all the navies of the world, the Arabella rode at anchor. Almost she had the air of a prisoner, for a quarter of a mile ahead, to starboard, rose the lofty, massive single round tower of the fort, whilst a couple of cables'-length astern, and to larboard, rode the six men-of-war that composed the Jamaica squadron.
Abeam with the Arabella, across the harbour, were the flat-fronted white buildings of that imposing city that came down to the very water's edge. Behind these the red roofs rose like terraces, marking the gentle slope upon which the city was built, dominated here by a turret, there by a spire, and behind these again a range of green hills with for ultimate background a sky that was like a dome of polished steel.
On a cane day-bed that had been set for him on the quarter-deck, sheltered from the dazzling, blistering sunshine by an improvised awning of brown sailcloth, lounged Peter Blood, a calf-bound, well-thumbed copy of Horace's Odes neglected in his hands.
From immediately below him came the swish of mops and the gurgle of water in the scuppers, for it was still early morning, and under the directions of Hayton, the bo'sun, the swabbers were at work in the waist and forecastle. Despite the heat and the stagnant air, one of the toilers found breath to croak a ribald buccaneering ditty:
“For we laid her board and board,And we put her to the sword,And we sank her in the deep blue sea.So It's heigh-ho, and heave-a-ho!Who'll sail for the Main with me?”
Blood fetched a sigh, and the ghost of a smile played over his lean, sun-tanned face. Then the black brows came together above the vivid blue eyes, and thought swiftly closed the door upon his immediate surroundings.
Things had not sped at all well with him in the past fortnight since his acceptance of the King's commission. There had been trouble with Bishop from the moment of landing. As Blood and Lord Julian had stepped ashore together, they had been met by a man who took no pains to dissemble his chagrin at the turn of events and his determination to change it. He awaited them on the mole, supported by a group of officers.
“You are Lord Julian Wade, I understand,” was his truculent greeting. For Blood at the moment he had nothing beyond a malignant glance.
Lord Julian bowed. “I take it I have the honour to address Colonel Bishop, Deputy-Governor of Jamaica.” It was almost as if his lordship were giving the Colonel a lesson in deportment. The Colonel accepted it, and belatedly bowed, removing his broad hat. Then he plunged on.
“You have granted, I am told, the King's commission to this man.” His very tone betrayed the bitterness of his rancour. “Your motives were no doubt worthy... your gratitude to him for delivering you from the Spaniards. But the thing itself is unthinkable, my lord. The commission must be cancelled.”
“I don't think I understand,” said Lord Julian distantly.
“To be sure you don't, or you'd never ha' done it. The fellow's bubbled you. Why, he's first a rebel, then an escaped slave, and lastly a bloody pirate. I've been hunting him this year past.”
“I assure you, sir, that I was fully informed of all. I do not grant the King's commission lightly.”
“Don't you, by God! And what else do you call this? But as His Majesty's Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, I'll take leave to correct your mistake in my own way.”
“Ah! And what way may that be?”
“There's a gallows waiting for this rascal in Port Royal.”
Blood would have intervened at that, but Lord Julian forestalled him.
“I see, sir, that you do not yet quite apprehend the circumstances. If it is a mistake to grant Captain Blood a commission, the mistake is not mine. I am acting upon the instructions of my Lord Sunderland; and with a full knowledge of all the facts, his lordship expressly designated Captain Blood for this commission if Captain Blood could be persuaded to accept it.”
Colonel Bishop's mouth fell open in surprise and dismay.
“Lord Sunderland designated him?” he asked, amazed.
“Expressly.”
His lordship waited a moment for a reply. None coming from the speechless Deputy-Governor, he asked a question: “Would you still venture to describe the matter as a mistake, sir? And dare you take the risk of correcting it?”
“I... I had not dreamed....”
“I understand, sir. Let me present Captain Blood.”
Perforce Bishop must put on the best face he could command. But that it was no more than a mask for his fury and his venom was plain to all.
From that unpromising beginning matters had not improved; rather had they grown worse.
Blood's thoughts were upon this and other things as he lounged there on the day-bed. He had been a fortnight in Port Royal, his ship virtually a unit now in the Jamaica squadron. And when the news of it reached Tortuga and the buccaneers who awaited his return, the name of Captain Blood, which had stood so high among the Brethren of the Coast, would become a byword, a thing of execration, and before all was done his life might pay forfeit for what would be accounted a treacherous defection. And for what had he placed himself in this position? For the sake of a girl who avoided him so persistently and intentionally that he must assume that she still regarded him with aversion. He had scarcely been vouchsafed a glimpse of her in all this fortnight, although with that in view for his main object he had daily haunted her uncle's residence, and daily braved the unmasked hostility and baffled rancour in which Colonel Bishop held him. Nor was that the worst of it. He was allowed plainly to perceive that it was the graceful, elegant young trifler from St. James's, Lord Julian Wade, to whom her every moment was devoted. And what chance had he, a desperate adventurer with a record of outlawry, against such a rival as that, a man of parts, moreover, as he was bound to admit?
You conceive the bitterness of his soul. He beheld himself to be as the dog in the fable that had dropped the substance to snatch at a delusive shadow.
He sought comfort in a line on the open page before him:
“levius fit patientia quicquid corrigere est nefas.”
Sought it, but hardly found it.
A boat that had approached unnoticed from the shore came scraping and bumping against the great red hull of the Arabella, and a raucous voice sent up a hailing shout. From the ship's belfry two silvery notes rang clear and sharp, and a moment or two later the bo'sun's whistle shrilled a long wail.
The sounds disturbed Captain Blood from his disgruntled musings. He rose, tall, active, and arrestingly elegant in a scarlet, gold-laced coat that advertised his new position, and slipping the slender volume into his pocket, advanced to the carved rail of the quarter-deck, just as Jeremy Pitt was setting foot upon the companion.
“A note for you from the Deputy-Governor,” said the master shortly, as he proffered a folded sheet.
Blood broke the seal, and read. Pitt, loosely clad in shirt and breeches, leaned against the rail the while and watched him, unmistakable concern imprinted on his fair, frank countenance.
Blood uttered a short laugh, and curled his lip. “It is a very peremptory summons,” he said, and passed the note to his friend.
The young master's grey eyes skimmed it. Thoughtfully he stroked his golden beard.
“You'll not go?” he said, between question and assertion.
“Why not? Haven't I been a daily visitor at the fort...?”
“But it'll be about the Old Wolf that he wants to see you. It gives him a grievance at last. You know, Peter, that it is Lord Julian alone has stood between Bishop and his hate of you. If now he can show that....”
“What if he can?” Blood interrupted carelessly. “Shall I be in greater danger ashore than aboard, now that we've but fifty men left, and they lukewarm rogues who would as soon serve the King as me? Jeremy, dear lad, the Arabella's a prisoner here, bedad, 'twixt the fort there and the fleet yonder. Don't be forgetting that.”
Jeremy clenched his hands. “Why did ye let Wolverstone and the others go?” he cried, with a touch of bitterness. “You should have seen the danger.”
“How could I in honesty have detained them? It was in the bargain. Besides, how could their staying have helped me?” And as Pitt did not answer him: “Ye see?” he said, and shrugged. “I'll be getting my hat and cane and sword, and go ashore in the cock-boat. See it manned for me.”
“Ye're going to deliver yourself into Bishop's hands,” Pitt warned him.
“Well, well, maybe he'll not find me quite so easy to grasp as he imagines. There's a thorn or two left on me.” And with a laugh Blood departed to his cabin.
Jeremy Pitt answered the laugh with an oath. A moment he stood irresolute where Blood had left him. Then slowly, reluctance dragging at his feet, he went down the companion to give the order for the cock-boat.
“If anything should happen to you, Peter,” he said, as Blood was going over the side, “Colonel Bishop had better look to himself. These fifty lads may be lukewarm at present, as you say, but—sink me!—they'll be anything but lukewarm if there's a breach of faith.”
“And what should be happening to me, Jeremy? Sure, now, I'll be back for dinner, so I will.”
Blood climbed down into the waiting boat. But laugh though he might, he knew as well as Pitt that in going ashore that morning he carried his life in his hands. Because of this, it may have been that when he stepped on to the narrow mole, in the shadow of the shallow outer wall of the fort through whose crenels were thrust the black noses of its heavy guns, he gave order that the boat should stay for him at that spot. He realized that he might have to retreat in a hurry.
Walking leisurely, he skirted the embattled wall, and passed through the great gates into the courtyard. Half-a-dozen soldiers lounged there, and in the shadow cast by the wall, Major Mallard, the Commandant, was slowly pacing. He stopped short at sight of Captain Blood, and saluted him, as was his due, but the smile that lifted the officer's stiff mostachios was grimly sardonic. Peter Blood's attention, however, was elsewhere.
On his right stretched a spacious garden, beyond which rose the white house that was the residence of the Deputy-Governor. In that garden's main avenue, that was fringed with palm and sandalwood, he had caught sight of Miss Bishop alone. He crossed the courtyard with suddenly lengthened stride.
“Good-morning to ye, ma'am,” was his greeting as he overtook her; and hat in hand now, he added on a note of protest: “Sure, it's nothing less than uncharitable to make me run in this heat.”
“Why do you run, then?” she asked him coolly, standing slim and straight before him, all in white and very maidenly save in her unnatural composure. “I am pressed,” she informed him. “So you will forgive me if I do not stay.”
“You were none so pressed until I came,” he protested, and if his thin lips smiled, his blue eyes were oddly hard.
“Since you perceive it, sir, I wonder that you trouble to be so insistent.”
That crossed the swords between them, and it was against Blood's instincts to avoid an engagement.
“Faith, you explain yourself after a fashion,” said he. “But since it was more or less in your service that I donned the King's coat, you should suffer it to cover the thief and pirate.”
She shrugged and turned aside, in some resentment and some regret. Fearing to betray the latter, she took refuge in the former. “I do my best,” said she.
“So that ye can be charitable in some ways!” He laughed softly. “Glory be, now, I should be thankful for so much. Maybe I'm presumptuous. But I can't forget that when I was no better than a slave in your uncle's household in Barbados, ye used me with a certain kindness.”
“Why not? In those days you had some claim upon my kindness. You were just an unfortunate gentleman then.”
“And what else would you be calling me now?”
“Hardly unfortunate. We have heard of your good fortune on the seas—how your luck has passed into a byword. And we have heard other things: of your good fortune in other directions.”
She spoke hastily, the thought of Mademoiselle d'Ogeron in her mind. And instantly would have recalled the words had she been able. But Peter Blood swept them lightly aside, reading into them none of her meaning, as she feared he would.
“Aye—a deal of lies, devil a doubt, as I could prove to you.”
“I cannot think why you should trouble to put yourself on your defence,” she discouraged him.
“So that ye may think less badly of me than you do.”
“What I think of you can be a very little matter to you, sir.”
This was a disarming stroke. He abandoned combat for expostulation.
“Can ye say that now? Can ye say that, beholding me in this livery of a service I despise? Didn't ye tell me that I might redeem the past? It's little enough I am concerned to redeem the past save only in your eyes. In my own I've done nothing at all that I am ashamed of, considering the provocation I received.”
Her glance faltered, and fell away before his own that was so intent.
“I... I can't think why you should speak to me like this,” she said, with less than her earlier assurance.
“Ah, now, can't ye, indeed?” he cried. “Sure, then, I'll be telling ye.”
“Oh, please.” There was real alarm in her voice. “I realize fully what you did, and I realize that partly, at least, you may have been urged by consideration for myself. Believe me, I am very grateful. I shall always be grateful.”
“But if it's also your intention always to think of me as a thief and a pirate, faith, ye may keep your gratitude for all the good it's like to do me.”
A livelier colour crept into her cheeks. There was a perceptible heave of the slight breast that faintly swelled the flimsy bodice of white silk. But if she resented his tone and his words, she stifled her resentment. She realized that perhaps she had, herself, provoked his anger. She honestly desired to make amends.
“You are mistaken,” she began. “It isn't that.”
But they were fated to misunderstand each other.
Jealousy, that troubler of reason, had been over-busy with his wits as it had with hers.
“What is it, then?” quoth he, and added the question: “Lord Julian?”
She started, and stared at him blankly indignant now.
“Och, be frank with me,” he urged her, unpardonably. “'Twill be a kindness, so it will.”
For a moment she stood before him with quickened breathing, the colour ebbing and flowing in her cheeks. Then she looked past him, and tilted her chin forward.
“You... you are quite insufferable,” she said. “I beg that you will let me pass.”
He stepped aside, and with the broad feathered hat which he still held in his hand, he waved her on towards the house.
“I'll not be detaining you any longer, ma'am. After all, the cursed thing I did for nothing can be undone. Ye'll remember afterwards that it was your hardness drove me.”
She moved to depart, then checked, and faced him again. It was she now who was on her defence, her voice quivering with indignation.
“You take that tone! You dare to take that tone!” she cried, astounding him by her sudden vehemence. “You have the effrontery to upbraid me because I will not take your hands when I know how they are stained; when I know you for a murderer and worse?”
He stared at her open-mouthed.
“A murderer—I?” he said at last.
“Must I name your victims? Did you not murder Levasseur?”
“Levasseur?” He smiled a little. “So they've told you about that!”
“Do you deny it?”
“I killed him, it is true. I can remember killing another man in circumstances that were very similar. That was in Bridgetown on the night of the Spanish raid. Mary Traill would tell you of it. She was present.”
He clapped his hat on his head with a certain abrupt fierceness, and strode angrily away, before she could answer or even grasp the full significance of what he had said.
Peter Blood stood in the pillared portico of Government House, and with unseeing eyes that were laden with pain and anger, stared out across the great harbour of Port Royal to the green hills rising from the farther shore and the ridge of the Blue Mountains beyond, showing hazily through the quivering heat.
He was aroused by the return of the negro who had gone to announce him, and following now this slave, he made his way through the house to the wide piazza behind it, in whose shade Colonel Bishop and my Lord Julian Wade took what little air there was.
“So ye've come,” the Deputy-Governor hailed him, and followed the greeting by a series of grunts of vague but apparently ill-humoured import.
He did not trouble to rise, not even when Lord Julian, obeying the instincts of finer breeding, set him the example. From under scowling brows the wealthy Barbados planter considered his sometime slave, who, hat in hand, leaning lightly upon his long beribboned cane, revealed nothing in his countenance of the anger which was being steadily nourished by this cavalier reception.
At last, with scowling brow and in self-sufficient tones, Colonel Bishop delivered himself.
“I have sent for you, Captain Blood, because of certain news that has just reached me. I am informed that yesterday evening a frigate left the harbour having on board your associate Wolverstone and a hundred men of the hundred and fifty that were serving under you. His lordship and I shall be glad to have your explanation of how you came to permit that departure.”
“Permit?” quoth Blood. “I ordered it.”
The answer left Bishop speechless for a moment. Then:
“You ordered it?” he said in accents of unbelief, whilst Lord Julian raised his eyebrows. “'Swounds! Perhaps you'll explain yourself? Whither has Wolverstone gone?”
“To Tortuga. He's gone with a message to the officers commanding the other four ships of the fleet that is awaiting me there, telling them what's happened and why they are no longer to expect me.”
Bishop's great face seemed to swell and its high colour to deepen. He swung to Lord Julian.
“You hear that, my lord? Deliberately he has let Wolverstone loose upon the seas again—Wolverstone, the worst of all that gang of pirates after himself. I hope your lordship begins at last to perceive the folly of granting the King's commission to such a man as this against all my counsels. Why, this thing is... it's just mutiny... treason! By God! It's matter for a court-martial.”
“Will you cease your blather of mutiny and treason and courts-martial?” Blood put on his hat, and sat down unbidden. “I have sent Wolverstone to inform Hagthorpe and Christian and Yberville and the rest of my lads that they've one clear month in which to follow my example, quit piracy, and get back to their boucans or their logwood, or else sail out of the Caribbean Sea. That's what I've done.”
“But the men?” his lordship interposed in his level, cultured voice. “This hundred men that Wolverstone has taken with him?”
“They are those of my crew who have no taste for King James's service, and have preferred to seek work of other kinds. It was in our compact, my lord, that there should be no constraining of my men.”
“I don't remember it,” said his lordship, with sincerity.
Blood looked at him in surprise. Then he shrugged. “Faith, I'm not to blame for your lordship's poor memory. I say that it was so; and I don't lie. I've never found it necessary. In any case ye couldn't have supposed that I should consent to anything different.”
And then the Deputy-Governor exploded.
“You have given those damned rascals in Tortuga this warning so that they may escape! That is what you have done. That is how you abuse the commission that has saved your own neck!”
Peter Blood considered him steadily, his face impassive. “I will remind you,” he said at last, very quietly, “that the object in view was—leaving out of account your own appetites which, as every one knows, are just those of a hangman—to rid the Caribbean of buccaneers. Now, I've taken the most effective way of accomplishing that object. The knowledge that I've entered the King's service should in itself go far towards disbanding the fleet of which I was until lately the admiral.”
“I see!” sneered the Deputy-Governor malevolently. “And if it does not?”
“It will be time enough then to consider what else is to be done.”
Lord Julian forestalled a fresh outburst on the part of Bishop.
“It is possible,” he said, “that my Lord Sunderland will be satisfied, provided that the solution is such as you promise.”
It was a courteous, conciliatory speech. Urged by friendliness towards Blood and understanding of the difficult position in which the buccaneer found himself, his lordship was disposed to take his stand upon the letter of his instructions. Therefore he now held out a friendly hand to help him over the latest and most difficult obstacle which Blood himself had enabled Bishop to place in the way of his redemption. Unfortunately the last person from whom Peter Blood desired assistance at that moment was this young nobleman, whom he regarded with the jaundiced eyes of jealousy.
“Anyway,” he answered, with a suggestion of defiance and more than a suggestion of a sneer, “it's the most ye should expect from me, and certainly it's the most ye'll get.”
His lordship frowned, and dabbed his lips with a handkerchief.
“I don't think that I quite like the way you put it. Indeed, upon reflection, Captain Blood, I am sure that I do not.”
“I am sorry for that, so I am,” said Blood impudently. “But there it is. I'm not on that account concerned to modify it.”
His lordship's pale eyes opened a little wider. Languidly he raised his eyebrows.
“Ah!” he said. “You're a prodigiously uncivil fellow. You disappoint me, sir. I had formed the notion that you might be a gentleman.”
“And that's not your lordship's only mistake,” Bishop cut in. “You made a worse when you gave him the King's commission, and so sheltered the rascal from the gallows I had prepared for him in Port Royal.”
“Aye—but the worst mistake of all in this matter of commissions,” said Blood to his lordship, “was the one that trade this greasy slaver Deputy-Governor of Jamaica instead of its hangman, which is the office for which he's by nature fitted.”
“Captain Blood!” said his lordship sharply in reproof. “Upon my soul and honour, sir, you go much too far. You are....”
But here Bishop interrupted him. He had heaved himself to his feet, at last, and was venting his fury in unprintable abuse. Captain Blood, who had also risen, stood apparently impassive, for the storm to spend itself. When at last this happened, he addressed himself quietly to Lord Julian, as if Colonel Bishop had not spoken.
“Your lordship was about to say?” he asked, with challenging smoothness.
But his lordship had by now recovered his habitual composure, and was again disposed to be conciliatory. He laughed and shrugged.
“Faith! here's a deal of unnecessary heat,” said he. “And God knows this plaguey climate provides enough of that. Perhaps, Colonel Bishop, you are a little uncompromising; and you, sir, are certainly a deal too peppery. I have said, speaking on behalf of my Lord Sunderland, that I am content to await the result of your experiment.”
But Bishop's fury had by now reached a stage in which it was not to be restrained.
“Are you, indeed?” he roared. “Well, then, I am not. This is a matter in which your lordship must allow me to be the better judge. And, anyhow, I'll take the risk of acting on my own responsibility.”
Lord Julian abandoned the struggle. He smiled wearily, shrugged, and waved a hand in implied resignation. The Deputy-Governor stormed on.
“Since my lord here has given you a commission, I can't regularly deal with you out of hand for piracy as you deserve. But you shall answer before a court-martial for your action in the matter of Wolverstone, and take the consequences.”
“I see,” said Blood. “Now we come to it. And it's yourself as Deputy-Governor will preside over that same court-martial. So that ye can wipe off old scores by hanging me, it's little ye care how ye do it!” He laughed, and added: “Praemonitus, praemunitus.”
“What shall that mean?” quoth Lord Julian sharply.
“I had imagined that your lordship would have had some education.”
He was at pains, you see, to be provocative.
“It's not the literal meaning I am asking, sir,” said Lord Julian, with frosty dignity. “I want to know what you desire me to understand?”
“I'll leave your lordship guessing,” said Blood. “And I'll be wishing ye both a very good day.” He swept off his feathered hat, and made them a leg very elegantly.
“Before you go,” said Bishop, “and to save you from any idle rashness, I'll tell you that the Harbour-Master and the Commandant have their orders. You don't leave Port Royal, my fine gallows bird. Damme, I mean to provide you with permanent moorings here, in Execution Dock.”
Peter Blood stiffened, and his vivid blue eyes stabbed the bloated face of his enemy. He passed his long cane into his left hand, and with his right thrust negligently into the breast of his doublet, he swung to Lord Julian, who was thoughtfully frowning.
“Your lordship, I think, promised me immunity from this.”
“What I may have promised,” said his lordship, “your own conduct makes it difficult to perform.” He rose. “You did me a service, Captain Blood, and I had hoped that we might be friends. But since you prefer to have it otherwise....” He shrugged, and waved a hand towards the Deputy-Governor.
Blood completed the sentence in his own way:
“Ye mean that ye haven't the strength of character to resist the urgings of a bully.” He was apparently at his ease, and actually smiling. “Well, well—as I said before—praemonitus, praemunitus. I'm afraid that ye're no scholar, Bishop, or ye'd know that I means forewarned, forearmed.”
“Forewarned? Ha!” Bishop almost snarled. “The warning comes a little late. You do not leave this house.” He took a step in the direction of the doorway, and raised his voice. “Ho there...” he was beginning to call.
Then with a sudden audible catch in his breath, he stopped short. Captain Blood's right hand had reemerged from the breast of his doublet, bringing with it a long pistol with silver mountings richly chased, which he levelled within a foot of the Deputy-Governor's head.
“And forearmed,” said he. “Don't stir from where you are, my lord, or there may be an accident.”
And my lord, who had been moving to Bishop's assistance, stood instantly arrested. Chap-fallen, with much of his high colour suddenly departed, the Deputy-Governor was swaying on unsteady legs. Peter Blood considered him with a grimness that increased his panic.
“I marvel that I don't pistol you without more ado, ye fat blackguard. If I don't, it's for the same reason that once before I gave ye your life when it was forfeit. Ye're not aware of the reason, to be sure; but it may comfort ye to know that it exists. At the same time I'll warn ye not to put too heavy a strain on my generosity, which resides at the moment in my trigger-finger. Ye mean to hang me, and since that's the worst that can happen to me anyway, you'll realize that I'll not boggle at increasing the account by spilling your nasty blood.” He cast his cane from him, thus disengaging his left hand. “Be good enough to give me your arm, Colonel Bishop. Come, come, man, your arm.”
Under the compulsion of that sharp tone, those resolute eyes, and that gleaming pistol, Bishop obeyed without demur. His recent foul volubility was stemmed. He could not trust himself to speak. Captain Blood tucked his left arm through the Deputy-Governor's proffered right. Then he thrust his own right hand with its pistol back into the breast of his doublet.
“Though invisible, it's aiming at ye none the less, and I give you my word of honour that I'll shoot ye dead upon the very least provocation, whether that provocation is yours or another's. Ye'll bear that in mind, Lord Julian. And now, ye greasy hangman, step out as brisk and lively as ye can, and behave as naturally as ye may, or it's the black stream of Cocytus ye'll be contemplating.” Arm in arm they passed through the house, and down the garden, where Arabella lingered, awaiting Peter Blood's return.
Consideration of his parting words had brought her first turmoil of mind, then a clear perception of what might be indeed the truth of the death of Levasseur. She perceived that the particular inference drawn from it might similarly have been drawn from Blood's deliverance of Mary Traill. When a man so risks his life for a woman, the rest is easily assumed. For the men who will take such risks without hope of personal gain are few. Blood was of those few, as he had proved in the case of Mary Traill.
It needed no further assurances of his to convince her that she had done him a monstrous injustice. She remembered words he had used—words overheard aboard his ship (which he had named the Arabella) on the night of her deliverance from the Spanish admiral; words he had uttered when she had approved his acceptance of the King's commission; the words he had spoken to her that very morning, which had but served to move her indignation. All these assumed a fresh meaning in her mind, delivered now from its unwarranted preconceptions.
Therefore she lingered there in the garden, awaiting his return that she might make amends; that she might set a term to all misunderstanding. In impatience she awaited him. Yet her patience, it seemed, was to be tested further. For when at last he came, it was in company—unusually close and intimate company—with her uncle. In vexation she realized that explanations must be postponed. Could she have guessed the extent of that postponement, vexation would have been changed into despair.
He passed, with his companion, from that fragrant garden into the courtyard of the fort. Here the Commandant, who had been instructed to hold himself in readiness with the necessary men against the need to effect the arrest of Captain Blood, was amazed by the curious spectacle of the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica strolling forth arm in arm and apparently on the friendliest terms with the intended prisoner. For as they went, Blood was chatting and laughing briskly.
They passed out of the gates unchallenged, and so came to the mole where the cock-boat from the Arabella was waiting. They took their places side by side in the stern sheets, and were pulled away together, always very close and friendly, to the great red ship where Jeremy Pitt so anxiously awaited news.
You conceive the master's amazement to see the Deputy-Governor come toiling up the entrance ladder, with Blood following very close behind him.
“Sure, I walked into a trap, as ye feared, Jeremy,” Blood hailed him. “But I walked out again, and fetched the trapper with me. He loves his life, does this fat rascal.”
Colonel Bishop stood in the waist, his great face blenched to the colour of clay, his mouth loose, almost afraid to look at the sturdy ruffians who lounged about the shot-rack on the main hatch.
Blood shouted an order to the bo'sun, who was leaning against the forecastle bulkhead.
“Throw me a rope with a running noose over the yardarm there, against the need of it. Now, don't be alarming yourself, Colonel, darling. It's no more than a provision against your being unreasonable, which I am sure ye'll not be. We'll talk the matter over whiles we are dining, for I trust ye'll not refuse to honour my table by your company.”
He led away the will-less, cowed bully to the great cabin. Benjamin, the negro steward, in white drawers and cotton shirt, made haste by his command to serve dinner.
Colonel Bishop collapsed on the locker under the stern ports, and spoke now for the first time.
“May I ask wha... what are your intentions?” he quavered.
“Why, nothing sinister, Colonel. Although ye deserve nothing less than that same rope and yardarm, I assure you that it's to be employed only as a last resource. Ye've said his lordship made a mistake when he handed me the commission which the Secretary of State did me the honour to design for me. I'm disposed to agree with you; so I'll take to the sea again. Cras ingens iterabimus aequor. It's the fine Latin scholar ye'll be when I've done with ye. I'll be getting back to Tortuga and my buccaneers, who at least are honest, decent fellows. So I've fetched ye aboard as a hostage.”
“My God!” groaned the Deputy-Governor. “Ye... ye never mean that ye'll carry me to Tortuga!”
Blood laughed outright. “Oh, I'd never serve ye such a bad turn as that. No, no. All I want is that ye ensure my safe departure from Port Royal. And, if ye're reasonable, I'll not even trouble you to swim for it this time. Ye've given certain orders to your Harbour-Master, and others to the Commandant of your plaguey fort. Ye'll be so good as to send for them both aboard here, and inform them in my presence that the Arabella is leaving this afternoon on the King's service and is to pass out unmolested. And so as to make quite sure of their obedience, they shall go a little voyage with us, themselves. Here's what you require. Now write—unless you prefer the yardarm.”
Colonel Bishop heaved himself up in a pet. “You constrain me with violence...” he was beginning.
Blood smoothly interrupted him.
“Sure, now, I am not constraining you at all. I'm giving you a perfectly free choice between the pen and the rope. It's a matter for yourself entirely.”
Bishop glared at him; then shrugging heavily, he took up the pen and sat down at the table. In an unsteady hand he wrote that summons to his officers. Blood despatched it ashore; and then bade his unwilling guest to table.
“I trust, Colonel, your appetite is as stout as usual.”
The wretched Bishop took the seat to which he was commanded. As for eating, however, that was not easy to a man in his position; nor did Blood press him. The Captain, himself, fell to with a good appetite. But before he was midway through the meal came Hayton to inform him that Lord Julian Wade had just come aboard, and was asking to see him instantly.
“I was expecting him,” said Blood. “Fetch him in.”
Lord Julian came. He was very stern and dignified. His eyes took in the situation at a glance, as Captain Blood rose to greet him.
“It's mighty friendly of you to have joined us, my lord.”
“Captain Blood,” said his lordship with asperity, “I find your humour a little forced. I don't know what may be your intentions; but I wonder do you realize the risks you are running.”
“And I wonder does your lordship realize the risk to yourself in following us aboard as I had counted that you would.”
“What shall that mean, sir?”
Blood signalled to Benjamin, who was standing behind Bishop.
“Set a chair for his lordship. Hayton, send his lordship's boat ashore. Tell them he'll not be returning yet awhile.”
“What's that?” cried his lordship. “Blister me! D'ye mean to detain me? Are ye mad?”
“Better wait, Hayton, in case his lordship should turn violent,” said Blood. “You, Benjamin, you heard the message. Deliver it.”
“Will you tell me what you intend, sir?” demanded his lordship, quivering with anger.
“Just to make myself and my lads here safe from Colonel Bishop's gallows. I've said that I trusted to your gallantry not to leave him in the lurch, but to follow him hither, and there's a note from his hand gone ashore to summon the Harbour-Master and the Commandant of the fort. Once they are aboard, I shall have all the hostages I need for our safety.”
“You scoundrel!” said his lordship through his teeth.
“Sure, now, that's entirely a matter of the point of view,” said Blood. “Ordinarily it isn't the kind of name I could suffer any man to apply to me. Still, considering that ye willingly did me a service once, and that ye're likely unwillingly to do me another now, I'll overlook your discourtesy, so I will.”
His lordship laughed. “You fool,” he said. “Do you dream that I came aboard your pirate ship without taking my measures? I informed the Commandant of exactly how you had compelled Colonel Bishop to accompany you. Judge now whether he or the Harbour-Master will obey the summons, or whether you will be allowed to depart as you imagine.”
Blood's face became grave. “I'm sorry for that,” said he.
I thought you would be, answered his lordship.
“Oh, but not on my own account. It's the Deputy-Governor there I'm sorry for. D'ye know what Ye've done? Sure, now, ye've very likely hanged him.”
“My God!” cried Bishop in a sudden increase of panic.
“If they so much as put a shot across my bows, up goes their Deputy-Governor to the yardarm. Your only hope, Colonel, lies in the fact that I shall send them word of that intention. And so that you may mend as far as you can the harm you have done, it's yourself shall bear them the message, my lord.”
“I'll see you damned before I do,” fumed his lordship.
“Why, that's unreasonable and unreasoning. But if ye insist, why, another messenger will do as well, and another hostage aboard—as I had originally intended—will make my hand the stronger.”
Lord Julian stared at him, realizing exactly what he had refused.
“You'll think better of it now that ye understand?” quoth Blood.
“Aye, in God's name, go, my lord,” spluttered Bishop, “and make yourself obeyed. This damned pirate has me by the throat.”
His lordship surveyed him with an eye that was not by any means admiring. “Why, if that is your wish...” he began. Then he shrugged, and turned again to Blood.
“I suppose I can trust you that no harm will come to Colonel Bishop if you are allowed to sail?”
“You have my word for it,” said Blood. “And also that I shall put him safely ashore again without delay.”
Lord Julian bowed stiffly to the cowering Deputy-Governor. “You understand, sir, that I do as you desire,” he said coldly.
“Aye, man, aye!” Bishop assented hastily.
“Very well.” Lord Julian bowed again and took his departure. Blood escorted him to the entrance ladder at the foot of which still swung the Arabella's own cock-boat.
“It's good-bye, my lord,” said Blood. “And there's another thing.” He proffered a parchment that he had drawn from his pocket. “It's the commission. Bishop was right when he said it was a mistake.”
Lord Julian considered him, and considering him his expression softened.
“I am sorry,” he said sincerely.
“In other circumstances...” began Blood. “Oh, but there! Ye'll understand. The boat's waiting.”
Yet with his foot on the first rung of the ladder, Lord Julian hesitated.
“I still do not perceive—blister me if I do!—why you should not have found some one else to carry your message to the Commandant, and kept me aboard as an added hostage for his obedience to your wishes.”
Blood's vivid eyes looked into the other's that were clear and honest, and he smiled, a little wistfully. A moment he seemed to hesitate. Then he explained himself quite fully.
“Why shouldn't I tell you? It's the same reason that's been urging me to pick a quarrel with you so that I might have the satisfaction of slipping a couple of feet of steel into your vitals. When I accepted your commission, I was moved to think it might redeem me in the eyes of Miss Bishop—for whose sake, as you may have guessed, I took it. But I have discovered that such a thing is beyond accomplishment. I should have known it for a sick man's dream. I have discovered also that if she's choosing you, as I believe she is, she's choosing wisely between us, and that's why I'll not have your life risked by keeping you aboard whilst the message goes by another who might bungle it. And now perhaps ye'll understand.”
Lord Julian stared at him bewildered. His long, aristocratic face was very pale.
“My God!” he said. “And you tell me this?”
“I tell you because... Oh, plague on it!—so that ye may tell her; so that she may be made to realize that there's something of the unfortunate gentleman left under the thief and pirate she accounts me, and that her own good is my supreme desire. Knowing that, she may... faith, she may remember me more kindly—if it's only in her prayers. That's all, my lord.”
Lord Julian continued to look at the buccaneer in silence. In silence, at last, he held out his hand; and in silence Blood took it.
“I wonder whether you are right,” said his lordship, “and whether you are not the better man.”
“Where she is concerned see that you make sure that I am right. Good-bye to you.”
Lord Julian wrung his hand in silence, went down the ladder, and was pulled ashore. From the distance he waved to Blood, who stood leaning on the bulwarks watching the receding cock-boat.
The Arabella sailed within the hour, moving lazily before a sluggish breeze. The fort remained silent and there was no movement from the fleet to hinder her departure. Lord Julian had carried the message effectively, and had added to it his own personal commands.