Miss Arabella Bishop was aroused very early on the following morning by
the brazen voice of a bugle and the insistent clanging of a bell in the
ship's belfry. As she lay awake, idly watching the rippled green water
that appeared to be streaming past the heavily glazed porthole, she
became gradually aware of the sounds of swift, laboured bustle--the
clatter of many feet, the shouts of hoarse voices, and the persistent
trundlings of heavy bodies in the ward-room immediately below the deck
of the cabin. Conceiving these sounds to portend a more than normal
activity, she sat up, pervaded by a vague alarm, and roused her still
slumbering woman.
In his cabin on the starboard side Lord Julian, disturbed by the same
sounds, was already astir and hurriedly dressing. When presently he
emerged under the break of the poop, he found himself staring up into
a mountain of canvas. Every foot of sail that she could carry had been
crowded to the Arabella's yards, to catch the morning breeze. Ahead
and on either side stretched the limitless expanse of ocean, sparkling
golden in the sun, as yet no more than a half-disc of flame upon the
horizon straight ahead.
About him in the waist, where all last night had been so peaceful, there
was a frenziedly active bustle of some threescore men. By the rail,
immediately above and behind Lord Julian, stood Captain Blood in
altercation with a one-eyed giant, whose head was swathed in a red
cotton kerchief, whose blue shirt hung open at the waist. As his
lordship, moving forward, revealed himself, their voices ceased, and
Blood turned to greet him.
“Good-morning to you,” he said, and added “I've blundered badly, so I
have. I should have known better than to come so close to Jamaica by
night. But I was in haste to land you. Come up here. I have something to
show you.”
Wondering, Lord Julian mounted the companion as he was bidden. Standing
beside Captain Blood, he looked astern, following the indication of the
Captain's hand, and cried out in his amazement. There, not more than
three miles away, was land--an uneven wall of vivid green that filled
the western horizon. And a couple of miles this side of it, bearing
after them, came speeding three great white ships.
“They fly no colours, but they're part of the Jamaica fleet.” Blood
spoke without excitement, almost with a certain listlessness. “When dawn
broke we found ourselves running to meet them. We went about, and it's
been a race ever since. But the Arabella 's been at sea these four
months, and her bottom's too foul for the speed we're needing.”
Wolverstone hooked his thumbs into his broad leather belt, and from his
great height looked down sardonically upon Lord Julian, tall man though
his lordship was. “So that you're like to be in yet another sea-fight
afore ye've done wi' ships, my lord.”
“That's a point we were just arguing,” said Blood. “For I hold that
we're in no case to fight against such odds.”
“The odds be damned!” Wolverstone thrust out his heavy jowl. “We're used
to odds. The odds was heavier at Maracaybo; yet we won out, and took
three ships. They was heavier yesterday when we engaged Don Miguel.”
“Aye--but those were Spaniards.”
“And what better are these?--Are ye afeard of a lubberly Barbados
planter? Whatever ails you, Peter? I've never known ye scared afore.”
A gun boomed out behind them.
“That'll be the signal to lie to,” said Blood, in the same listless
voice; and he fetched a sigh.
Wolverstone squared himself defiantly before his captain
“I'll see Colonel Bishop in hell or ever I lies to for him.” And he
spat, presumably for purposes of emphasis.
His lordship intervened.
“Oh, but--by your leave--surely there is nothing to be apprehended from
Colonel Bishop. Considering the service you have rendered to his niece
and to me....”
Wolverstone's horse-laugh interrupted him. “Hark to the gentleman!” he
mocked. “Ye don't know Colonel Bishop, that's clear. Not for his niece,
not for his daughter, not for his own mother, would he forgo the blood
what he thinks due to him. A drinker of blood, he is. A nasty beast. We
knows, the Cap'n and me. We been his slaves.”
“But there is myself,” said Lord Julian, with great dignity.
Wolverstone laughed again, whereat his lordship flushed. He was moved to
raise his voice above its usual languid level.
“I assure you that my word counts for something in England.”
“Oh, aye--in England. But this ain't England, damme.”
Came the roar of a second gun, and a round shot splashed the water less
than half a cable's-length astern. Blood leaned over the rail to speak
to the fair young man immediately below him by the helmsman at the
whipstaff.
“Bid them take in sail, Jeremy,” he said quietly. “We lie to.”
But Wolverstone interposed again.
“Hold there a moment, Jeremy!” he roared. “Wait!” He swung back to face
the Captain, who had placed a hand on is shoulder and was smiling, a
trifle wistfully.
“Steady, Old Wolf! Steady!” Captain Blood admonished him.
“Steady, yourself, Peter. Ye've gone mad! Will ye doom us all to hell
out of tenderness for that cold slip of a girl?”
“Stop!” cried Blood in sudden fury.
But Wolverstone would not stop. “It's the truth, you fool. It's that
cursed petticoat's making a coward of you. It's for her that ye're
afeard--and she, Colonel Bishop's niece! My God, man, ye'll have a
mutiny aboard, and I'll lead it myself sooner than surrender to be
hanged in Port Royal.”
Their glances met, sullen defiance braving dull anger, surprise, and
pain.
“There is no question,” said Blood, “of surrender for any man aboard
save only myself. If Bishop can report to England that I am taken
and hanged, he will magnify himself and at the same time gratify his
personal rancour against me. That should satisfy him. I'll send him a
message offering to surrender aboard his ship, taking Miss Bishop and
Lord Julian with me, but only on condition that the Arabella is allowed
to proceed unharmed. It's a bargain that he'll accept, if I know him at
all.”
“It's a bargain he'll never be offered,” retorted Wolverstone, and his
earlier vehemence was as nothing to his vehemence now. “Ye're surely
daft even to think of it, Peter!”
“Not so daft as you when you talk of fighting that.” He flung out an arm
as he spoke to indicate the pursuing ships, which were slowly but surely
creeping nearer. “Before we've run another half-mile we shall be within
range.”
Wolverstone swore elaborately, then suddenly checked. Out of the tail
of his single eye he had espied a trim figure in grey silk that was
ascending the companion. So engrossed had they been that they had not
seen Miss Bishop come from the door of the passage leading to the cabin.
And there was something else that those three men on the poop, and Pitt
immediately below them, had failed to observe. Some moments ago Ogle,
followed by the main body of his gun-deck crew, had emerged from the
booby hatch, to fall into muttered, angrily vehement talk with those
who, abandoning the gun-tackles upon which they were labouring, had come
to crowd about him.
Even now Blood had no eyes for that. He turned to look at Miss Bishop,
marvelling a little, after the manner in which yesterday she had avoided
him, that she should now venture upon the quarter-deck. Her presence
at this moment, and considering the nature of his altercation with
Wolverstone, was embarrassing.
Very sweet and dainty she stood before him in her gown of shimmering
grey, a faint excitement tinting her fair cheeks and sparkling in her
clear, hazel eyes, that looked so frank and honest. She wore no hat,
and the ringlets of her gold-brown hair fluttered distractingly in the
morning breeze.
Captain Blood bared his head and bowed silently in a greeting which she
returned composedly and formally.
“What is happening, Lord Julian?” she enquired.
As if to answer her a third gun spoke from the ships towards which she
was looking intent and wonderingly. A frown rumpled her brow. She looked
from one to the other of the men who stood there so glum and obviously
ill at ease.
“They are ships of the Jamaica fleet,” his lordship answered her.
It should in any case have been a sufficient explanation. But before
more could be added, their attention was drawn at last to Ogle, who came
bounding up the broad ladder, and to the men lounging aft in his wake,
in all of which, instinctively, they apprehended a vague menace.
At the head of the companion, Ogle found his progress barred by Blood,
who confronted him, a sudden sternness in his face and in every line of
him.
“What's this?” the Captain demanded sharply. “Your station is on the
gun-deck. Why have you left it?”
Thus challenged, the obvious truculence faded out of Ogle's bearing,
quenched by the old habit of obedience and the natural dominance that
was the secret of the Captain's rule over his wild followers. But it
gave no pause to the gunner's intention. If anything it increased his
excitement.
“Captain,” he said, and as he spoke he pointed to the pursuing ships,
“Colonel Bishop holds us. We're in no case either to run or fight.”
Blood's height seemed to increase, as did his sternness.
“Ogle,” said he, in a voice cold and sharp as steel, “your station is on
the gun-deck. You'll return to it at once, and take your crew with you,
or else....”
But Ogle, violent of mien and gesture, interrupted him.
“Threats will not serve, Captain.”
“Will they not?”
It was the first time in his buccaneering career that an order of his
had been disregarded, or that a man had failed in the obedience to which
he pledged all those who joined him. That this insubordination should
proceed from one of those whom he most trusted, one of his old Barbados
associates, was in itself a bitterness, and made him reluctant to that
which instinct told him must be done. His hand closed over the butt of
one of the pistols slung before him.
“Nor will that serve you,” Ogle warned him, still more fiercely. “The
men are of my thinking, and they'll have their way.”
“And what way may that be?”
“The way to make us safe. We'll neither sink nor hang whiles we can help
it.”
From the three or four score men massed below in the waist came a rumble
of approval. Captain Blood's glance raked the ranks of those resolute,
fierce-eyed fellows, then it came to rest again on Ogle. There was here
quite plainly a vague threat, a mutinous spirit he could not understand.
“You come to give advice, then, do you?” quoth he, relenting nothing of
his sternness.
“That's it, Captain; advice. That girl, there.” He flung out a bare arm
to point to her. “Bishop's girl; the Governor of Jamaica's niece.... We
want her as a hostage for our safety.”
“Aye!” roared in chorus the buccaneers below, and one or two of them
elaborated that affirmation.
In a flash Captain Blood saw what was in their minds. And for all that
he lost nothing of his outward stern composure, fear invaded his heart.
“And how,” he asked, “do you imagine that Miss Bishop will prove such a
hostage?”
“It's a providence having her aboard; a providence. Heave to, Captain,
and signal them to send a boat, and assure themselves that Miss is here.
Then let them know that if they attempt to hinder our sailing hence,
we'll hang the doxy first and fight for it after. That'll cool Colonel
Bishop's heat, maybe.”
“And maybe it won't.” Slow and mocking came Wolverstone's voice to
answer the other's confident excitement, and as he spoke he advanced
to Blood's side, an unexpected ally. “Some o' them dawcocks may believe
that tale.” He jerked a contemptuous thumb towards the men in the waist,
whose ranks were steadily being increased by the advent of others from
the forecastle. “Although even some o' they should know better, for
there's still a few was on Barbados with us, and are acquainted like
me and you with Colonel Bishop. If ye're counting on pulling Bishop's
heartstrings, ye're a bigger fool, Ogle, than I've always thought you
was with anything but guns. There's no heaving to for such a matter as
that unless you wants to make quite sure of our being sunk. Though we
had a cargo of Bishop's nieces it wouldn't make him hold his hand.
Why, as I was just telling his lordship here, who thought like you that
having Miss Bishop aboard would make us safe, not for his mother would
that filthy slaver forgo what's due to him. And if ye' weren't a fool,
Ogle, you wouldn't need me to tell you this. We've got to fight, my
lads....”
“How can we fight, man?” Ogle stormed at him, furiously battling the
conviction which Wolverstone's argument was imposing upon his listeners.
“You may be right, and you may be wrong. We've got to chance it. It's
our only chance....”
The rest of his words were drowned in the shouts of the hands insisting
that the girl be given up to be held as a hostage. And then louder than
before roared a gun away to leeward, and away on their starboard beam
they saw the spray flung up by the shot, which had gone wide.
“They are within range,” cried Ogle. And leaning from the rail, “Put
down the helm,” he commanded.
Pitt, at his post beside the helmsman, turned intrepidly to face the
excited gunner.
“Since when have you commanded on the main deck, Ogle? I take my orders
from the Captain.”
“You'll take this order from me, or, by God, you'll....”
“Wait!” Blood bade him, interrupting, and he set a restraining hand upon
the gunner's arm. “There is, I think, a better way.”
He looked over his shoulder, aft, at the advancing ships, the foremost
of which was now a bare quarter of a mile away. His glance swept in
passing over Miss Bishop and Lord Julian standing side by side some
paces behind him. He observed her pale and tense, with parted lips
and startled eyes that were fixed upon him, an anxious witness of this
deciding of her fate. He was thinking swiftly, reckoning the chances
if by pistolling Ogle he were to provoke a mutiny. That some of the men
would rally to him, he was sure. But he was no less sure that the main
body would oppose him, and prevail in spite of all that he could do,
taking the chance that holding Miss Bishop to ransom seemed to afford
them. And if they did that, one way or the other, Miss Bishop would be
lost. For even if Bishop yielded to their demand, they would retain her
as a hostage.
Meanwhile Ogle was growing impatient. His arm still gripped by Blood, he
thrust his face into the Captain's.
“What better way?” he demanded. “There is none better. I'll not be
bubbled by what Wolverstone has said. He may be right, and he may be
wrong. We'll test it. It's our only chance, I've said, and we must take
it.”
The better way that was in Captain Blood's mind was the way that already
he had proposed to Wolverstone. Whether the men in the panic Ogle had
aroused among them would take a different view from Wolverstone's he
did not know. But he saw quite clearly now that if they consented, they
would not on that account depart from their intention in the matter
of Miss Bishop; they would make of Blood's own surrender merely an
additional card in this game against the Governor of Jamaica.
“It's through her that we're in this trap,” Ogle stormed on. “Through
her and through you. It was to bring her to Jamaica that you risked all
our lives, and we're not going to lose our lives as long as there's a
chance to make ourselves safe through her.”
He was turning again to the helmsman below, when Blood's grip tightened
on his arm. Ogle wrenched it free, with an oath. But Blood's mind was
now made up. He had found the only way, and repellent though it might be
to him, he must take it.
“That is a desperate chance,” he cried. “Mine is the safe and easy
way. Wait!” He leaned over the rail. “Put the helm down,” he bade Pitt.
“Heave her to, and signal to them to send a boat.”
A silence of astonishment fell upon the ship--of astonishment and
suspicion at this sudden yielding. But Pitt, although he shared it, was
prompt to obey. His voice rang out, giving the necessary orders, and
after an instant's pause, a score of hands sprang to execute them.
Came the creak of blocks and the rattle of slatting sails as they swung
aweather, and Captain Blood turned and beckoned Lord Julian forward.
His lordship, after a moment's hesitation, advanced in surprise and
mistrust--a mistrust shared by Miss Bishop, who, like his lordship and
all else aboard, though in a different way, had been taken aback by
Blood's sudden submission to the demand to lie to.
Standing now at the rail, with Lord Julian beside him, Captain Blood
explained himself.
Briefly and clearly he announced to all the object of Lord Julian's
voyage to the Caribbean, and he informed them of the offer which
yesterday Lord Julian had made to him.
“That offer I rejected, as his lordship will tell you, deeming myself
affronted by it. Those of you who have suffered under the rule of King
James will understand me. But now in the desperate case in which we find
ourselves--outsailed, and likely to be outfought, as Ogle has said--I
am ready to take the way of Morgan: to accept the King's commission and
shelter us all behind it.”
It was a thunderbolt that for a moment left them all dazed. Then Babel
was reenacted. The main body of them welcomed the announcement as only
men who have been preparing to die can welcome a new lease of life. But
many could not resolve one way or the other until they were satisfied
upon several questions, and chiefly upon one which was voiced by Ogle.
“Will Bishop respect the commission when you hold it?”
It was Lord Julian who answered:
“It will go very hard with him if he attempts to flout the King's
authority. And though he should dare attempt it, be sure that his own
officers will not dare to do other than oppose him.”
“Aye,” said Ogle, “that is true.”
But there were some who were still in open and frank revolt against the
course. Of these was Wolverstone, who at once proclaimed his hostility.
“I'll rot in hell or ever I serves the King,” he bawled in a great rage.
But Blood quieted him and those who thought as he did.
“No man need follow me into the King's service who is reluctant. That is
not in the bargain. What is in the bargain is that I accept this service
with such of you as may choose to follow me. Don't think I accept it
willingly. For myself, I am entirely of Wolverstone's opinion. I accept
it as the only way to save us all from the certain destruction into
which my own act may have brought us. And even those of you who do
not choose to follow me shall share the immunity of all, and shall
afterwards be free to depart. Those are the terms upon which I sell
myself to the King. Let Lord Julian, the representative of the Secretary
of State, say whether he agrees to them.”
Prompt, eager, and clear came his lordship's agreement. And that
was practically the end of the matter. Lord Julian, the butt now of
good-humouredly ribald jests and half-derisive acclamations, plunged
away to his cabin for the commission, secretly rejoicing at a turn of
events which enabled him so creditably to discharge the business on
which he had been sent.
Meanwhile the bo'sun signalled to the Jamaica ships to send a boat, and
the men in the waist broke their ranks and went noisily flocking to line
the bulwarks and view the great stately vessels that were racing down
towards them.
As Ogle left the quarter-deck, Blood turned, and came face to face with
Miss Bishop. She had been observing him with shining eyes, but at sight
of his dejected countenance, and the deep frown that scarred his
brow, her own expression changed. She approached him with a hesitation
entirely unusual to her. She set a hand lightly upon his arm.
“You have chosen wisely, sir,” she commended him, “however much against
your inclinations.”
He looked with gloomy eyes upon her for whom he had made this sacrifice.
“I owed it to you--or thought I did,” he said.
She did not understand. “Your resolve delivered me from a horrible
danger,” she admitted. And she shivered at the memory of it. “But I do
not understand why you should have hesitated when first it was proposed
to you. It is an honourable service.”
“King James's?” he sneered.
“England's,” she corrected him in reproof. “The country is all, sir;
the sovereign naught. King James will pass; others will come and pass;
England remains, to be honourably served by her sons, whatever rancour
they may hold against the man who rules her in their time.”
He showed some surprise. Then he smiled a little. “Shrewd advocacy,” he
approved it. “You should have spoken to the crew.”
And then, the note of irony deepening in his voice: “Do you suppose now
that this honourable service might redeem one who was a pirate and a
thief?”
Her glance fell away. Her voice faltered a little in replying. “If he...
needs redeeming. Perhaps... perhaps he has been judged too harshly.”
The blue eyes flashed, and the firm lips relaxed their grim set.
“Why... if ye think that,” he said, considering her, an odd hunger in
his glance, “life might have its uses, after all, and even the service
of King James might become tolerable.”
Looking beyond her, across the water, he observed a boat putting off
from one of the great ships, which, hove to now, were rocking gently
some three hundred yards away. Abruptly his manner changed. He was like
one recovering, taking himself in hand again. “If you will go below, and
get your gear and your woman, you shall presently be sent aboard one of
the ships of the fleet.” He pointed to the boat as he spoke.
She left him, and thereafter with Wolverstone, leaning upon the rail,
he watched the approach of that boat, manned by a dozen sailors, and
commanded by a scarlet figure seated stiffly in the stern sheets. He
levelled his telescope upon that figure.
“It'll not be Bishop himself,” said Wolverstone, between question and
assertion.
“No.” Blood closed his telescope. “I don't know who it is.”
“Ha!” Wolverstone vented an ejaculation of sneering mirth. “For all
his eagerness, Bishop'd be none so willing to come, hisself. He's been
aboard this hulk afore, and we made him swim for it that time. He'll
have his memories. So he sends a deputy.”
This deputy proved to be an officer named Calverley, a vigorous,
self-sufficient fellow, comparatively fresh from England, whose manner
made it clear that he came fully instructed by Colonel Bishop upon the
matter of how to handle the pirates.
His air, as he stepped into the waist of the Arabella, was haughty,
truculent, and disdainful.
Blood, the King's commission now in his pocket, and Lord Julian standing
beside him, waited to receive him, and Captain Calverley was a little
taken aback at finding himself confronted by two men so very different
outwardly from anything that he had expected. But he lost none of his
haughty poise, and scarcely deigned a glance at the swarm of fierce,
half-naked fellows lounging in a semicircle to form a background.
“Good-day to you, sir,” Blood hailed him pleasantly. “I have the honour
to give you welcome aboard the Arabella. My name is Blood--Captain
Blood, at your service. You may have heard of me.”
Captain Calverley stared hard. The airy manner of this redoubtable
buccaneer was hardly what he had looked for in a desperate fellow,
compelled to ignominious surrender. A thin, sour smile broke on the
officer's haughty lips.
“You'll ruffle it to the gallows, no doubt,” he said contemptuously.
“I suppose that is after the fashion of your kind. Meanwhile it's your
surrender I require, my man, not your impudence.”
Captain Blood appeared surprised, pained. He turned in appeal to Lord
Julian.
“D'ye hear that now? And did ye ever hear the like? But what did I tell
ye? Ye see, the young gentleman's under a misapprehension entirely.
Perhaps it'll save broken bones if your lordship explains just who and
what I am.”
Lord Julian advanced a step and bowed perfunctorily and rather
disdainfully to that very disdainful but now dumbfounded officer. Pitt,
who watched the scene from the quarter-deck rail, tells us that his
lordship was as grave as a parson at a hanging. But I suspect this
gravity for a mask under which Lord Julian was secretly amused.
“I have the honour to inform you, sir,” he said stiffly, “that Captain
Blood holds a commission in the King's service under the seal of my Lord
Sunderland, His Majesty's Secretary of State.”
Captain Calverley's face empurpled; his eyes bulged. The buccaneers in
the background chuckled and crowed and swore among themselves in their
relish of this comedy. For a long moment Calverley stared in silence
at his lordship, observing the costly elegance of his dress, his air of
calm assurance, and his cold, fastidious speech, all of which savoured
distinctly of the great world to which he belonged.
“And who the devil may you be?” he exploded at last.
Colder still and more distant than ever grew his lordship's voice.
“You're not very civil, sir, as I have already noticed. My name is
Wade--Lord Julian Wade. I am His Majesty's envoy to these barbarous
parts, and my Lord Sunderland's near kinsman. Colonel Bishop has been
notified of my coming.”
The sudden change in Calverley's manner at Lord Julian's mention of his
name showed that the notification had been received, and that he had
knowledge of it.
“I... I believe that he has,” said Calverley, between doubt and
suspicion. “That is: that he has been notified of the coming of Lord
Julian Wade. But... but... aboard this ship...?” The officer made a
gesture of helplessness, and, surrendering to his bewilderment, fell
abruptly silent.
“I was coming out on the Royal Mary....”
“That is what we were advised.”
“But the Royal Mary fell a victim to a Spanish privateer, and I might
never have arrived at all but for the gallantry of Captain Blood, who
rescued me.”
Light broke upon the darkness of Calverley's mind. “I see. I
understand.”
“I will take leave to doubt it.” His lordship's tone abated nothing of
its asperity. “But that can wait. If Captain Blood will show you
his commission, perhaps that will set all doubts at rest, and we may
proceed. I shall be glad to reach Port Royal.”
Captain Blood thrust a parchment under Calverley's bulging eyes. The
officer scanned it, particularly the seals and signature. He stepped
back, a baffled, impotent man. He bowed helplessly.
“I must return to Colonel Bishop for my orders,” he informed them.
At that moment a lane was opened in the ranks of the men, and through
this came Miss Bishop followed by her octoroon woman. Over his shoulder
Captain Blood observed her approach.
“Perhaps, since Colonel Bishop is with you, you will convey his niece
to him. Miss Bishop was aboard the Royal Mary also, and I rescued her
together with his lordship. She will be able to acquaint her uncle with
the details of that and of the present state of affairs.”
Swept thus from surprise to surprise, Captain Calverley could do no more
than bow again.
“As for me,” said Lord Julian, with intent to make Miss Bishop's
departure free from all interference on the part of the buccaneers,
“I shall remain aboard the Arabella until we reach Port Royal. My
compliments to Colonel Bishop. Say that I look forward to making his
acquaintance there.”