In the glory of the following morning, sparkling and clear after the
storm, with an invigorating, briny tang in the air from the salt-ponds
on the south of the island, a curious scene was played on the beach of
the Virgen Magra, at the foot of a ridge of bleached dunes, beside the
spread of sail from which Levasseur had improvised a tent.
Enthroned upon an empty cask sat the French filibuster to transact
important business: the business of making himself safe with the
Governor of Tortuga.
A guard of honour of a half-dozen officers hung about him; five of them
were rude boucan-hunters, in stained jerkins and leather breeches; the
sixth was Cahusac. Before him, guarded by two half-naked negroes, stood
young d'Ogeron, in frilled shirt and satin small-clothes and fine shoes
of Cordovan leather. He was stripped of doublet, and his hands were tied
behind him. The young gentleman's comely face was haggard. Near at
hand, and also under guard, but unpinioned, mademoiselle his sister sat
hunched upon a hillock of sand. She was very pale, and it was in vain
that she sought to veil in a mask of arrogance the fears by which she
was assailed.
Levasseur addressed himself to M. d'Ogeron. He spoke at long length. In
the end--
“I trust, monsieur,” said he, with mock suavity, “that I have made
myself quite clear. So that there may be no misunderstandings, I will
recapitulate. Your ransom is fixed at twenty thousand pieces of eight,
and you shall have liberty on parole to go to Tortuga to collect it.
In fact, I shall provide the means to convey you thither, and you shall
have a month in which to come and go. Meanwhile, your sister remains
with me as a hostage. Your father should not consider such a sum
excessive as the price of his son's liberty and to provide a dowry for
his daughter. Indeed, if anything, I am too modest, pardi! M. d'Ogeron
is reputed a wealthy man.”
M. d'Ogeron the younger raised his head and looked the Captain boldly in
the face.
“I refuse--utterly and absolutely, do you understand? So do your worst,
and be damned for a filthy pirate without decency and without honour.”
“But what words!” laughed Levasseur. “What heat and what foolishness!
You have not considered the alternative. When you do, you will not
persist in your refusal. You will not do that in any case. We have spurs
for the reluctant. And I warn you against giving me your parole under
stress, and afterwards playing me false. I shall know how to find and
punish you. Meanwhile, remember your sister's honour is in pawn to me.
Should you forget to return with the dowry, you will not consider it
unreasonable that I forget to marry her.”
Levasseur's smiling eyes, intent upon the young man's face, saw the
horror that crept into his glance. M. d'Ogeron cast a wild glance at
mademoiselle, and observed the grey despair that had almost stamped the
beauty from her face. Disgust and fury swept across his countenance.
Then he braced himself and answered resolutely:
“No, you dog! A thousand times, no!”
“You are foolish to persist.” Levasseur spoke without anger, with a
coldly mocking regret. His fingers had been busy tying knots in a length
of whipcord. He held it up. “You know this? It is a rosary of pain that
has wrought the conversion of many a stubborn heretic. It is capable
of screwing the eyes out of a man's head by way of helping him to see
reason. As you please.”
He flung the length of knotted cord to one of the negroes, who in an
instant made it fast about the prisoner's brows. Then between cord and
cranium the black inserted a short length of metal, round and slender
as a pipe-stem. That done he rolled his eyes towards Levasseur, awaiting
the Captain's signal.
Levasseur considered his victim, and beheld him tense and braced, his
haggard face of a leaden hue, beads of perspiration glinting on his
pallid brow just beneath the whipcord.
Mademoiselle cried out, and would have risen: but her guards restrained
her, and she sank down again, moaning.
“I beg that you will spare yourself and your sister,” said the Captain,
“by being reasonable. What, after all, is the sum I have named? To your
wealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been too modest. But since
I have said twenty thousand pieces of eight, twenty thousand pieces it
shall be.”
“And for what, if you please, have you said twenty thousand pieces of
eight?”
In execrable French, but in a voice that was crisp and pleasant, seeming
to echo some of the mockery that had invested Levasseur's, that question
floated over their heads.
Startled, Levasseur and his officers looked up and round. On the crest
of the dunes behind them, in sharp silhouette against the deep cobalt of
the sky, they beheld a tall, lean figure scrupulously dressed in black
with silver lace, a crimson ostrich plume curled about the broad brim of
his hat affording the only touch of colour. Under that hat was the tawny
face of Captain Blood.
Levasseur gathered himself up with an oath of amazement. He had
conceived Captain Blood by now well below the horizon, on his way to
Tortuga, assuming him to have been so fortunate as to have weathered
last night's storm.
Launching himself upon the yielding sand, into which he sank to the
level of the calves of his fine boots of Spanish leather, Captain Blood
came sliding erect to the beach. He was followed by Wolverstone, and
a dozen others. As he came to a standstill, he doffed his hat, with a
flourish, to the lady. Then he turned to Levasseur.
“Good-morning, my Captain,” said he, and proceeded to explain his
presence. “It was last night's hurricane compelled our return. We had no
choice but to ride before it with stripped poles, and it drove us back
the way we had gone. Moreover--as the devil would have it!--the Santiago
sprang her mainmast; and so I was glad to put into a cove on the west
of the island a couple of miles away, and we've walked across to
stretch our legs, and to give you good-day. But who are these?” And he
designated the man and the woman.
Cahusac shrugged his shoulders, and tossed his long arms to heaven.
“Voila!” said he, pregnantly, to the firmament.
Levasseur gnawed his lip, and changed colour. But he controlled himself
to answer civilly:
“As you see, two prisoners.”
“Ah! Washed ashore in last night's gale, eh?”
“Not so.” Levasseur contained himself with difficulty before that irony.
“They were in the Dutch brig.”
“I don't remember that you mentioned them before.”
“I did not. They are prisoners of my own--a personal matter. They are
French.”
“French!” Captain Blood's light eyes stabbed at Levasseur, then at the
prisoners.
M. d'Ogeron stood tense and braced as before, but the grey horror had
left his face. Hope had leapt within him at this interruption, obviously
as little expected by his tormentor as by himself. His sister, moved
by a similar intuition, was leaning forward with parted lips and gaping
eyes.
Captain Blood fingered his lip, and frowned thoughtfully upon Levasseur.
“Yesterday you surprised me by making war upon the friendly Dutch. But
now it seems that not even your own countrymen are safe from you.”
“Have I not said that these... that this is a matter personal to me?”
“Ah! And their names?”
Captain Blood's crisp, authoritative, faintly disdainful manner stirred
Levasseur's quick anger. The blood crept slowly back into his blenched
face, and his glance grew in insolence, almost in menace. Meanwhile the
prisoner answered for him.
“I am Henri d'Ogeron, and this is my sister.”
“D'Ogeron?” Captain Blood stared. “Are you related by chance to my good
friend the Governor of Tortuga?”
“He is my father.”
Levasseur swung aside with an imprecation. In Captain Blood, amazement
for the moment quenched every other emotion.
“The saints preserve us now! Are you quite mad, Levasseur? First you
molest the Dutch, who are our friends; next you take prisoners two
persons that are French, your own countrymen; and now, faith, they're no
less than the children of the Governor of Tortuga, which is the one safe
place of shelter that we enjoy in these islands....”
Levasseur broke in angrily:
“Must I tell you again that it is a matter personal to me? I make myself
alone responsible to the Governor of Tortuga.”
“And the twenty thousand pieces of eight? Is that also a matter personal
to you?”
“It is.”
“Now I don't agree with you at all.” Captain Blood sat down on the cask
that Levasseur had lately occupied, and looked up blandly. “I may inform
you, to save time, that I heard the entire proposal that you made to
this lady and this gentleman, and I'll also remind you that we sail
under articles that admit no ambiguities. You have fixed their ransom at
twenty thousand pieces of eight. That sum then belongs to your crews and
mine in the proportions by the articles established. You'll hardly wish
to dispute it. But what is far more grave is that you have concealed
from me this part of the prizes taken on your last cruise, and for
such an offence as that the articles provide certain penalties that are
something severe in character.”
“Ho, ho!” laughed Levasseur unpleasantly. Then added: “If you dislike my
conduct we can dissolve the association.”
“That is my intention. But we'll dissolve it when and in the manner that
I choose, and that will be as soon as you have satisfied the articles
under which we sailed upon this cruise.
“What do you mean?”
“I'll be as short as I can,” said Captain Blood. “I'll waive for the
moment the unseemliness of making war upon the Dutch, of taking French
prisoners, and of provoking the anger of the Governor of Tortuga. I'll
accept the situation as I find it. Yourself you've fixed the ransom of
this couple at twenty thousand pieces, and, as I gather, the lady is
to be your perquisite. But why should she be your perquisite more than
another's, seeing that she belongs by the articles to all of us, as a
prize of war?”
Black as thunder grew the brow of Levasseur.
“However,” added Captain Blood, “I'll not dispute her to you if you are
prepared to buy her.”
“Buy her?”
“At the price you have set upon her.”
Levasseur contained his rage, that he might reason with the Irishman.
“That is the ransom of the man. It is to be paid for him by the Governor
of Tortuga.”
“No, no. Ye've parcelled the twain together--very oddly, I confess.
Ye've set their value at twenty thousand pieces, and for that sum you
may have them, since you desire it; but you'll pay for them the twenty
thousand pieces that are ultimately to come to you as the ransom of
one and the dowry of the other; and that sum shall be divided among our
crews. So that you do that, it is conceivable that our followers may
take a lenient view of your breach of the articles we jointly signed.”
Levasseur laughed savagely. “Ah ca! Credieu! The good jest!”
“I quite agree with you,” said Captain Blood.
To Levasseur the jest lay in that Captain Blood, with no more than a
dozen followers, should come there attempting to hector him who had a
hundred men within easy call. But it seemed that he had left out of his
reckoning something which his opponent had counted in. For as, laughing
still, Levasseur swung to his officers, he saw that which choked the
laughter in his throat. Captain Blood had shrewdly played upon the
cupidity that was the paramount inspiration of those adventurers. And
Levasseur now read clearly on their faces how completely they adopted
Captain Blood's suggestion that all must participate in the ransom which
their leader had thought to appropriate to himself.
It gave the gaudy ruffian pause, and whilst in his heart he cursed
those followers of his, who could be faithful only to their greed, he
perceived--and only just in time--that he had best tread warily.
“You misunderstand,” he said, swallowing his rage. “The ransom is
for division, when it comes. The girl, meanwhile, is mine on that
understanding.”
“Good!” grunted Cahusac. “On that understanding all arranges itself.”
“You think so?” said Captain Blood. “But if M. d'Ogeron should refuse to
pay the ransom? What then?” He laughed, and got lazily to his feet. “No,
no. If Captain Levasseur is meanwhile to keep the girl, as he proposes,
then let him pay this ransom, and be his the risk if it should
afterwards not be forthcoming.”
“That's it!” cried one of Levasseur's officers. And Cahusac added: “It's
reasonable, that! Captain Blood is right. It is in the articles.”
“What is in the articles, you fools?” Levasseur was in danger of losing
his head. “Sacre Dieu! Where do you suppose that I have twenty thousand
pieces? My whole share of the prizes of this cruise does not come to
half that sum. I'll be your debtor until I've earned it. Will that
content you?”
All things considered, there is not a doubt that it would have done so
had not Captain Blood intended otherwise.
“And if you should die before you have earned it? Ours is a calling
fraught with risks, my Captain.”
“Damn you!” Levasseur flung upon him livid with fury. “Will nothing
satisfy you?”
“Oh, but yes. Twenty thousand pieces of eight for immediate division.”
“I haven't got it.”
“Then let some one buy the prisoners who has.”
“And who do you suppose has it if I have not?”
“I have,” said Captain Blood.
“You have!” Levasseur's mouth fell open. “You... you want the girl?”
“Why not? And I exceed you in gallantry in that I will make sacrifices
to obtain her, and in honesty in that I am ready to pay for what I
want.”
Levasseur stared at him foolishly agape. Behind him pressed his
officers, gaping also.
Captain Blood sat down again on the cask, and drew from an inner pocket
of his doublet a little leather bag. “I am glad to be able to resolve a
difficulty that at one moment seemed insoluble.” And under the bulging
eyes of Levasseur and his officers, he untied the mouth of the bag and
rolled into his left palm four or five pearls each of the size of a
sparrow's egg. There were twenty such in the bag, the very pick of
those taken in that raid upon the pearl fleet. “You boast a knowledge of
pearls, Cahusac. At what do you value this?”
The Breton took between coarse finger and thumb the proffered lustrous,
delicately iridescent sphere, his shrewd eyes appraising it.
“A thousand pieces,” he answered shortly.
“It will fetch rather more in Tortuga or Jamaica,” said Captain Blood,
“and twice as much in Europe. But I'll accept your valuation. They are
almost of a size, as you can see. Here are twelve, representing twelve
thousand pieces of eight, which is La Foudre's share of three fifths of
the prize, as provided by the articles. For the eight thousand pieces
that go to the Arabella, I make myself responsible to my own men. And
now, Wolverstone, if you please, will you take my property aboard the
Arabella?” He stood up again, indicating the prisoners.
“Ah, no!” Levasseur threw wide the floodgates of his fury. “Ah, that,
no, by example! You shall not take her....” He would have sprung upon
Captain Blood, who stood aloof, alert, tight-lipped, and watchful.
But it was one of Levasseur's own officers who hindered him.
“Nom de Dieu, my Captain! What will you do? It is settled; honourably
settled with satisfaction to all.”
“To all?” blazed Levasseur. “Ah ca! To all of you, you animals! But what
of me?”
Cahusac, with the pearls clutched in his capacious hand, stepped up to
him on the other side. “Don't be a fool, Captain. Do you want to provoke
trouble between the crews? His men outnumber us by nearly two to one.
What's a girl more or less? In Heaven's name, let her go. He's paid
handsomely for her, and dealt fairly with us.”
“Dealt fairly?” roared the infuriated Captain. “You....” In all his
foul vocabulary he could find no epithet to describe his lieutenant.
He caught him a blow that almost sent him sprawling. The pearls were
scattered in the sand.
Cahusac dived after them, his fellows with him. Vengeance must wait.
For some moments they groped there on hands and knees, oblivious of all
else. And yet in those moments vital things were happening.
Levasseur, his hand on his sword, his face a white mask of rage, was
confronting Captain Blood to hinder his departure.
“You do not take her while I live!” he cried.
“Then I'll take her when you're dead,” said Captain Blood, and his own
blade flashed in the sunlight. “The articles provide that any man of
whatever rank concealing any part of a prize, be it of the value of no
more than a peso, shall be hanged at the yardarm. It's what I intended
for you in the end. But since ye prefer it this way, ye muckrake, faith,
I'll be humouring you.”
He waved away the men who would have interfered, and the blades rang
together.
M. d'Ogeron looked on, a man bemused, unable to surmise what the issue
either way could mean for him. Meanwhile, two of Blood's men who had
taken the place of the Frenchman's negro guards, had removed the crown
of whipcord from his brow. As for mademoiselle, she had risen, and was
leaning forward, a hand pressed tightly to her heaving breast, her face
deathly pale, a wild terror in her eyes.
It was soon over. The brute strength, upon which Levasseur so
confidently counted, could avail nothing against the Irishman's
practised skill. When, with both lungs transfixed, he lay prone on the
white sand, coughing out his rascally life, Captain Blood looked calmly
at Cahusac across the body.
“I think that cancels the articles between us,” he said. With soulless,
cynical eyes Cahusac considered the twitching body of his recent leader.
Had Levasseur been a man of different temper, the affair might have
ended in a very different manner. But, then, it is certain that Captain
Blood would have adopted in dealing with him different tactics. As it
was, Levasseur commanded neither love nor loyalty. The men who followed
him were the very dregs of that vile trade, and cupidity was their only
inspiration. Upon that cupidity Captain Blood had deftly played, until
he had brought them to find Levasseur guilty of the one offence they
deemed unpardonable, the crime of appropriating to himself something
which might be converted into gold and shared amongst them all.
Thus now the threatening mob of buccaneers that came hastening to the
theatre of that swift tragi-comedy were appeased by a dozen words of
Cahusac's.
Whilst still they hesitated, Blood added something to quicken their
decision.
“If you will come to our anchorage, you shall receive at once your share
of the booty of the Santiago, that you may dispose of it as you please.”
They crossed the island, the two prisoners accompanying them, and later
that day, the division made, they would have parted company but that
Cahusac, at the instances of the men who had elected him Levasseur's
successor, offered Captain Blood anew the services of that French
contingent.
“If you will sail with me again,” the Captain answered him, “you may do
so on the condition that you make your peace with the Dutch, and restore
the brig and her cargo.”
The condition was accepted, and Captain Blood went off to find his
guests, the children of the Governor of Tortuga.
Mademoiselle d'Ogeron and her brother--the latter now relieved of his
bonds--sat in the great cabin of the Arabella, whither they had been
conducted.
Wine and food had been placed upon the table by Benjamin, Captain
Blood's negro steward and cook, who had intimated to them that it was
for their entertainment. But it had remained untouched. Brother and
sister sat there in agonized bewilderment, conceiving that their escape
was but from frying-pan to fire. At length, overwrought by the suspense,
mademoiselle flung herself upon her knees before her brother to implore
his pardon for all the evil brought upon them by her wicked folly.
M. d'Ogeron was not in a forgiving mood.
“I am glad that at least you realize what you have done. And now this
other filibuster has bought you, and you belong to him. You realize
that, too, I hope.”
He might have said more, but he checked upon perceiving that the door
was opening. Captain Blood, coming from settling matters with the
followers of Levasseur, stood on the threshold. M. d'Ogeron had not
troubled to restrain his high-pitched voice, and the Captain had
overheard the Frenchman's last two sentences. Therefore he perfectly
understood why mademoiselle should bound up at sight of him, and shrink
back in fear.
“Mademoiselle,” said he in his vile but fluent French, “I beg you to
dismiss your fears. Aboard this ship you shall be treated with all
honour. So soon as we are in case to put to sea again, we steer a course
for Tortuga to take you home to your father. And pray do not consider
that I have bought you, as your brother has just said. All that I
have done has been to provide the ransom necessary to bribe a gang of
scoundrels to depart from obedience to the arch-scoundrel who commanded
them, and so deliver you from all peril. Count it, if you please, a
friendly loan to be repaid entirely at your convenience.”
Mademoiselle stared at him in unbelief. M. d'Ogeron rose to his feet.
“Monsieur, is it possible that you are serious?”
“I am. It may not happen often nowadays. I may be a pirate. But my ways
are not the ways of Levasseur, who should have stayed in Europe, and
practised purse-cutting. I have a sort of honour--shall we say, some
rags of honour?--remaining me from better days.” Then on a brisker note
he added: “We dine in an hour, and I trust that you will honour my table
with your company. Meanwhile, Benjamin will see, monsieur, that you are
more suitably provided in the matter of wardrobe.”
He bowed to them, and turned to depart again, but mademoiselle detained
him.
“Monsieur!” she cried sharply.
He checked and turned, whilst slowly she approached him, regarding him
between dread and wonder.
“Oh, you are noble!”
“I shouldn't put it as high as that myself,” said he.
“You are, you are! And it is but right that you should know all.”
“Madelon!” her brother cried out, to restrain her.
But she would not be restrained. Her surcharged heart must overflow in
confidence.
“Monsieur, for what befell I am greatly at fault. This man--this
Levasseur....”
He stared, incredulous in his turn. “My God! Is it possible? That
animal!”
Abruptly she fell on her knees, caught his hand and kissed it before he
could wrench it from her.
“What do you do?” he cried.
“An amende. In my mind I dishonoured you by deeming you his like, by
conceiving your fight with Levasseur a combat between jackals. On my
knees, monsieur, I implore you to forgive me.”
Captain Blood looked down upon her, and a smile broke on his lips,
irradiating the blue eyes that looked so oddly light in that tawny face.
“Why, child,” said he, “I might find it hard to forgive you the
stupidity of having thought otherwise.”
As he handed her to her feet again, he assured himself that he had
behaved rather well in the affair. Then he sighed. That dubious fame of
his that had spread so quickly across the Caribbean would by now have
reached the ears of Arabella Bishop. That she would despise him, he
could not doubt, deeming him no better than all the other scoundrels who
drove this villainous buccaneering trade. Therefore he hoped that some
echo of this deed might reach her also, and be set by her against
some of that contempt. For the whole truth, which he withheld from
Mademoiselle d'Ogeron, was that in venturing his life to save her, he
had been driven by the thought that the deed must be pleasing in the
eyes of Miss Bishop could she but witness it.