One of the boats bumped alongside the Arabella, and up the entrance
ladder came first a slight, spruce little gentleman in a coat of
mulberry satin laced with gold, whose wizened, yellow, rather peevish
face was framed in a heavy black periwig. His modish and costly apparel
had nowise suffered by the adventure through which he had passed, and
he carried himself with the easy assurance of a man of rank. Here, quite
clearly, was no buccaneer. He was closely followed by one who in every
particular, save that of age, was his physical opposite, corpulent in
a brawny, vigorous way, with a full, round, weather-beaten face whose
mouth was humourous and whose eyes were blue and twinkling. He was
well dressed without fripperies, and bore with him an air of vigorous
authority.
As the little man stepped from the ladder into the waist, whither
Captain Blood had gone to receive him, his sharp, ferrety dark eyes
swept the uncouth ranks of the assembled crew of the Arabella.
“And where the devil may I be now?” he demanded irritably. “Are you
English, or what the devil are you?”
“Myself, I have the honour to be Irish, sir. My name is Blood--Captain
Peter Blood, and this is my ship the Arabella, all very much at your
service.
“Blood!” shrilled the little man. “O 'Sblood! A pirate!” He swung to
the Colossus who followed him--“A damned pirate, van der Kuylen. Rend my
vitals, but we're come from Scylla to Charybdis.”
“So?” said the other gutturally, and again, “So?” Then the humour of it
took him, and he yielded to it.
“Damme! What's to laugh at, you porpoise?” spluttered mulberry-coat. “A
fine tale this'll make at home! Admiral van der Kuylen first loses his
fleet in the night, then has his flagship fired under him by a French
squadron, and ends all by being captured by a pirate. I'm glad you find
it matter for laughter. Since for my sins I happen to be with you, I'm
damned if I do.”
“There's a misapprehension, if I may make so bold as to point it out,”
put in Blood quietly. “You are not captured, gentlemen; you are rescued.
When you realize it, perhaps it will occur to you to acknowledge the
hospitality I am offering you. It may be poor, but it is the best at my
disposal.”
The fierce little gentleman stared at him. “Damme! Do you permit
yourself to be ironical?” he disapproved him, and possibly with a view
to correcting any such tendency, proceeded to introduce himself. “I am
Lord Willoughby, King William's Governor-General of the West Indies, and
this is Admiral van der Kuylen, commander of His Majesty's West Indian
fleet, at present mislaid somewhere in this damned Caribbean Sea.”
“King William?” quoth Blood, and he was conscious that Pitt and Dyke,
who were behind him, now came edging nearer, sharing his own wonder.
“And who may be King William, and of what may he be King?”
“What's that?” In a wonder greater than his own, Lord Willoughby
stared back at him. At last: “I am alluding to His Majesty King William
III--William of Orange--who, with Queen Mary, has been ruling England
for two months and more.”
There was a moment's silence, until Blood realized what he was being
told.
“D'ye mean, sir, that they've roused themselves at home, and kicked out
that scoundrel James and his gang of ruffians?”
Admiral van der Kuylen nudged his lordship, a humourous twinkle in his
blue eyes.
“His bolitics are fery sound, I dink,” he growled.
His lordship's smile brought lines like gashes into his leathery cheeks.
“'Slife! hadn't you heard? Where the devil have you been at all?”
“Out of touch with the world for the last three months,” said Blood.
“Stab me! You must have been. And in that three months the world has
undergone some changes.” Briefly he added an account of them. King
James was fled to France, and living under the protection of King Louis,
wherefore, and for other reasons, England had joined the league against
her, and was now at war with France. That was how it happened that the
Dutch Admiral's flagship had been attacked by M. de Rivarol's fleet
that morning, from which it clearly followed that in his voyage from
Cartagena, the Frenchman must have spoken some ship that gave him the
news.
After that, with renewed assurances that aboard his ship they should
be honourably entreated, Captain Blood led the Governor-General and the
Admiral to his cabin, what time the work of rescue went on. The news
he had received had set Blood's mind in a turmoil. If King James was
dethroned and banished, there was an end to his own outlawry for his
alleged share in an earlier attempt to drive out that tyrant. It became
possible for him to return home and take up his life again at the point
where it was so unfortunately interrupted four years ago. He was dazzled
by the prospect so abruptly opened out to him. The thing so filled his
mind, moved him so deeply, that he must afford it expression. In doing
so, he revealed of himself more than he knew or intended to the astute
little gentleman who watched him so keenly the while.
“Go home, if you will,” said his lordship, when Blood paused. “You
may be sure that none will harass you on the score of your piracy,
considering what it was that drove you to it. But why be in haste? We
have heard of you, to be sure, and we know of what you are capable upon
the seas. Here is a great chance for you, since you declare yourself
sick of piracy. Should you choose to serve King William out here during
this war, your knowledge of the West Indies should render you a very
valuable servant to His Majesty's Government, which you would not find
ungrateful. You should consider it. Damme, sir, I repeat: it is a great
chance you are given.
“That your lordship gives me,” Blood amended, “I am very grateful. But
at the moment, I confess, I can consider nothing but this great news. It
alters the shape of the world. I must accustom myself to view it as it
now is, before I can determine my own place in it.”
Pitt came in to report that the work of rescue was at an end, and the
men picked up--some forty-five in all--safe aboard the two buccaneer
ships. He asked for orders. Blood rose.
“I am negligent of your lordship's concerns in my consideration of my
own. You'll be wishing me to land you at Port Royal.”
“At Port Royal?” The little man squirmed wrathfully on his seat.
Wrathfully and at length he informed Blood that they had put into Port
Royal last evening to find its Deputy-Governor absent. “He had gone on
some wild-goose chase to Tortuga after buccaneers, taking the whole of
the fleet with him.”
Blood stared in surprise a moment; then yielded to laughter.
“He went, I suppose, before news reached him of the change of government
at home, and the war with France?”
“He did not,” snapped Willoughby. “He was informed of both, and also of
my coming before he set out.”
“Oh, impossible!”
“So I should have thought. But I have the information from a Major
Mallard whom I found in Port Royal, apparently governing in this fool's
absence.”
“But is he mad, to leave his post at such a time?” Blood was amazed.
“Taking the whole fleet with him, pray remember, and leaving the place
open to French attack. That is the sort of Deputy-Governor that the late
Government thought fit to appoint: an epitome of its misrule, damme!
He leaves Port Royal unguarded save by a ramshackle fort that can be
reduced to rubble in an hour. Stab me! It's unbelievable!”
The lingering smile faded from Blood's face. “Is Rivarol aware of this?”
he cried sharply.
It was the Dutch Admiral who answered him. “Vould he go dere if he were
not? M. de Rivarol he take some of our men prisoners. Berhabs dey dell
him. Berhabs he make dem tell. Id is a great obbordunidy.”
His lordship snarled like a mountain-cat. “That rascal Bishop shall
answer for it with his head if there's any mischief done through this
desertion of his post. What if it were deliberate, eh? What if he is
more knave than fool? What if this is his way of serving King James,
from whom he held his office?”
Captain Blood was generous. “Hardly so much. It was just vindictiveness
that urged him. It's myself he's hunting at Tortuga, my lord. But, I'm
thinking that while he's about it, I'd best be looking after Jamaica for
King William.” He laughed, with more mirth than he had used in the last
two months.
“Set a course for Port Royal, Jeremy, and make all speed. We'll be
level yet with M. de Rivarol, and wipe off some other scores at the same
time.”
Both Lord Willoughby and the Admiral were on their feet.
“But you are not equal to it, damme!” cried his lordship. “Any one of
the Frenchman's three ships is a match for both yours, my man.”
“In guns--aye,” said Blood, and he smiled. “But there's more than guns
that matter in these affairs. If your lordship would like to see
an action fought at sea as an action should be fought, this is your
opportunity.”
Both stared at him. “But the odds!” his lordship insisted.
“Id is imbossible,” said van der Kuylen, shaking his great head.
“Seamanship is imbordand. Bud guns is guns.”
“If I can't defeat him, I can sink my own ships in the channel, and
block him in until Bishop gets back from his wild-goose chase with his
squadron, or until your own fleet turns up.”
“And what good will that be, pray?” demanded Willoughby.
“I'll be after telling you. Rivarol is a fool to take this chance,
considering what he's got aboard. He carried in his hold the treasure
plundered from Cartagena, amounting to forty million livres.” They
jumped at the mention of that colossal sum. “He has gone into Port Royal
with it. Whether he defeats me or not, he doesn't come out of Port Royal
with it again, and sooner or later that treasure shall find its way into
King William's coffers, after, say, one fifth share shall have been paid
to my buccaneers. Is that agreed, Lord Willoughby?”
His lordship stood up, and shaking back the cloud of lace from his
wrist, held out a delicate white hand.
“Captain Blood, I discover greatness in you,” said he.
“Sure it's your lordship has the fine sight to perceive it,” laughed the
Captain.
“Yes, yes! Bud how vill you do id?” growled van der Kuylen.
“Come on deck, and it's a demonstration I'll be giving you before the
day's much older.”