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.