The Fortunes of Captain Blood cb-3 Page 14

  Pitt's opposition was immediate. 'Not unless we've taken leave of our senses. You don't know Havana, Peter. If there's a Spanish harbour in the New World that may be called impregnable, that harbour is Havana. In all the Caribbean there are no defences more formidable, as Drake discovered already in his day.'

  'And that's the fact,' said Walker, whose red eye had momentarily gleamed at Blood's words. 'The place is an arsenal. The entrance is by a channel not more than half a mile across, with three forts, no less, to defend it: the Moro, the Puntal, and El Fuerte. Ye wouldn't stay afloat an hour there.'

  Blood's eyes were dreamy. 'Yet you stayed afloat some days.'

  'Ay, man. But the circumstances.'

  'Glory be, now. Couldn't we be contriving circumstances? It wouldn't be the first time. The thing needs thought, and it's worth thinking about with no other enterprise to engage us.'

  'That,' said Yberville, who had never been able to reconcile himself to the neglect of the opportunity presented by the voyage of the Archbishop, 'is only because you're mawkish. The Primate of the New World is still at sea. Let him pay for the sins of his countrymen. His ransom need be no less than the plunder of Havana would yield us, and we could include in it compensation for Captain Walker for the slaves of which they've robbed him.'

  'Faith, ye have it,' said Wolverstone, who, being a heretic, was undaunted by any thought of sacrilege. 'It's like burning candles to Satan to be delicate with a Spaniard just because he's an archbishop.'

  'And it need not end there,' said Pitt, that other heretic, in a glow of sudden inspiration. 'If we had the Archbishop in the hold, we could sail into Havana without fear of their forts. They'ld never dare to fire on a ship that housed his holiness.'

  Blood was pensively toying with a curl of his black periwig. He smiled introspectively. 'I was thinking that same.'

  'So!' crowed Yberville. 'Religious scruples begin to yield to reason. Heaven be praised.'

  'Faith, now, I'll not say that it might not be worth a trifle of sacrilege — just a trifle, mark you — to squeeze his plunder out of this rogue of a Captain–General. Yes, I think it might be done.' He got up suddenly. 'Captain Walker, if ye've a mind to come with us on this venture and seek to recover what ye've lost, ye'd best be scuttling that guarda–costa and fetching your hands aboard the Arabella. Ye can trust us to provide you with a ship to take you home when this is over.'

  'Man!' cried the tough little slaver, all the natural fierceness of him sunk fathoms deep in his amazement. 'Ye're not serious?'

  'Not very,' said Captain Blood. 'It's just a whim of mine. But a whim that is like to cost this Don What's–his–name Perera dear. So you can come with us to Havana, and take your chance of sailing home again in a tall ship with a full cargo of hides, your fortunes restored, or you can have the set of sails ye're asking for, and go home empty–handed. The choice is yours.'

  Looking up at him almost in awe, Captain Walker yielded at once to the vigorous vitality and full–blooded confidence of the buccaneer. The adventurous spirit in him answered to the call. No risk, he swore, was too great that offered a chance to wipe off the score against that forsworn Captain–General.

  Yberville, however, was frowning. 'But the Archbishop, then?'

  Blood smiled with tight lips. 'The Archbishop certainly. We can do nothing without the Archbishop.' He turned to Pitt with an order that showed how fully he had already resolved not only upon what was to do, but upon how it should be done. 'Jerry you'll lay me a course for Sainte Croix.'

  'Why that?' quoth Yberville. 'It's much farther east than we need to go for his Eminence.'

  'To be sure it is. But one thing at a time. There's some gear we'll be needing, and Sainte Croix is the place to provide it.'

  III

  They did not, after all, scuttle the Spanish carack, as Captain Blood proposed. The thrifty nature of the little North Country seaman revolted at the thought of such waste, whilst his caution desired to know how he and his hands were ever to get back to England if Blood's scheme should, after all, miscarry even in part and no such tall ship as he promised should be forthcoming.

  For the rest, however, the events followed the course that Captain Blood laid down. Steering in a north–easterly direction, the Arabella, with the guarda–costa following, came a couple of days later to the French settlement of Sainte Croix, of which the buccaneers were free. Forty–eight hours they remained there, and Captain Blood, with Yberville and the bald–headed little bo'sun, Snell, who knew his way about every port of the Caribbean, spent most of the time ashore.

  Then, leaving the carack to await their return, Walker and his hands transferred themselves to the Arabella. She set sail, and laid a westward course once more, in the direction of Puerto Rico. After that she was seen no more until a fortnight later, when her great red hull was sighted off the undulating green hills of the northern coast of Cuba.

  In the genial, comparatively temperate airs of that region she sailed along those fertile shores, and so came at last to the entrance of the lagoon on which Havana stood in a majesty of limestone palaces, of churches, monasteries, squares, and market–places that might have been transported bodily from Old Castile to the New World.

  Scanning the defences as they approached, Blood realized for himself how little either Walker or Jeremy Pitt had exaggerated their massive strength. The mighty Moro Fort, with its sullen bastions and massive towers, occupied a rocky eminence at the very mouth of the channel; opposite to it stood the Puntal, with its demi–lunar batteries; and facing the entrance loomed El Fuerte, no less menacing. Whatever might have been the strength of the place in the time of Drake, he would be rash, indeed, who would run the gauntlet of those three formidable guardians now.

  The Arabella hove to in the roadstead, announced herself by firing a gun as a salute, hoisted the Union flag, and awaited events.

  They followed soon in the shape of a ten–oared barge, from under the awning of which stepped the Alcalde of the port, Walker's old friend, Don Hieronimo. He puffed his way up the Jacob's ladder, and came aboard to inquire into the purpose of this ship in these waters.

  Captain Blood, in a splendour of purple and silver, received him in the waist, attended by Pitt and Wolverstone. A dozen half–naked seamen hovered above the trim decks, and a half–dozen more were aloft dewing up the royals.

  Nothing could have exceeded the courtliness with which the Alcalde was made welcome. Blood, who announced himself casually as on his way to Jamaica with a valuable cargo of slaves, had been, he said, constrained by lack of wood and water to put in at Havana. He would depend upon the kindliness and courtesy of the Alcalde for these and also for some fresh victuals for which they would be the better, and he would gladly pay in gold for what they took.

  The black–coated Don Hieronimo, pasty–faced and flabby, some five and a half feet high and scarcely less round the belly, with the dewlap of an ox, was not to be seduced by the elegant exterior or courteous phrases of any damned heretical foreigner. He responded coldly, his expression one of consequential malevolence, whilst his shrewd black eyes scoured every corner of those decks suspiciously. Thus until the slaves were mentioned. Then a curious change took place; a measure of affability overspread his forbidding surliness. He went so far as to display his yellow teeth in a smile.

  To be sure the Señor Captain could purchase whatever he required in Havana. To be sure he was at liberty to enter the port when he pleased, and then not a doubt but that the bumboats would be alongside and able to supply all that he lacked. If not, the Alcalde would be happy to afford him every facility ashore.

  Upon these assurances the seaman at the whipstaff was ordered to put down the helm, and Pitt's clear voice rang out in command to the men at the braces to let go and haul. Catching the breeze again, the Arabella crept forward past those formidable forts, with the Alcalde's barge in tow, what time the Alcalde with ever–increasing affability was slyly seeking to draw from Captain Blood some information touching this cargo of
slaves in his hold. But so vague and lethargic was Captain Blood upon the subject, that in the end, Don Hieronimo was forced to come out into the open and deal frankly.

  'I may seem persistent in questioning you about these slaves,' he said. 'But that is because it occurs to me that if you choose, you need not be at the cost of carrying them to Jamaica. You would find a ready market for them here in Havana.'

  'In Havana?' Blood raised his eyebrows. 'But is it not against the laws of His Catholic Majesty?'

  The Alcalde pursed his thick, dusky lips. 'The law was made when there was no thought for our present difficulties. There has been a scourge of smallpox in the mines, and we are short of hands. Of necessity we must waive the law. If, then, you would care to trade, sir captain, there is no obstacle.'

  'I see,' said Blood, without enthusiasm.

  'And the prices will be good,' added Don Hieronimo, so as to stir him from his lethargy. 'In fact, they will be unusual.'

  'So are my slaves. Very unusual.'

  'And that's the fact,' Wolverstone confirmed him in his halting Spanish. 'They'll cost you dear, Señor Alcalde. Though I don't suppose ye'll grudge the price when you've had a look at them.'

  'If I might see them,' begged the Spaniard.

  'Oh, but why not?' was Blood's ready agreement.

  The Arabella had come by now through the bottle–neck into the great blue lagoon that is the Bay of Havana, a full three miles across. The leadsman in the forechains was calling the fathoms, and it occurred to Blood that it might be prudent to go no farther. He turned aside for a moment, to order Pitt to anchor where they stood, well away from the forest of masts and spars reared by the shipping over against the town. Then he came back to the Alcalde.

  'If you will follow me, Don Hieronimo,' said he, and led the way to a scuttle.

  By a short narrow ladder they dropped to the main–deck below, where the gloom was shot by shafts of sunlight from the open gunports, crossed by others from the gratings overhead. The Alcalde looked along that formidable array of cannon, and at the lines of hammocks slung behind them on either side, in some of which men were even now reposing.

  Stooping to avoid the stanchions in that shallow place, he followed his tall leader aft, and was followed in turn by the massive Wolverstone. Presently Blood paused, and turned, to ask a curious question.

  'Does it happen, sir, that you are acquainted with the Cardinal–Archbishop Don Ignacio de la Fuente, the new Primate of New Spain?'

  'Not yet, sir. He has not yet reached Havana. But we look daily now for the honour of receiving him.'

  'It may be yours even sooner than you think.'

  'But not sooner than we hope. What, sir, do you know of the Cardinal–Archbishop's voyage?'

  Blood, however, had already resumed his progress aft, and did not answer him.

  They came at last to the door of the wardroom, which was guarded by two musketeers. A muffled sound of chanting, Gregorian of character, which had mystified the Alcalde as they approached, was now so distinct that as they halted he could even distinguish the words of that droned supplication:

  'Hostem repellas longius

  Pacemque dones protinus;

  Ductore sic te praevio

  Vitemus omne noxium.'

  He frowned, and stared up at Blood. 'Por Dios! Are they your slaves who sing?'

  'They appear to find consolation in it.'

  Don Hieronimo was suspicious without knowing what to suspect. Something here was not as it should be. 'Oddly devout, are they not?' said he.

  'Certainly devout. Not oddly.'

  At a sign from him, one of the musketeers had unbarred the door, and as he now flung it wide, the chanting abruptly broke off on the word 'Saeculorum'. The Amen to that hymn was never uttered.

  Ceremoniously Blood waved the Alcalde forward. In haste to resolve this riddle, Don Hieronimo stepped boldly and quickly across the threshold, and there abruptly checked, at gaze with horror–stricken, bulging eyes.

  In the spacious but sparsely furnished ward–room, invaded by the smell of bilge–water and spunyam, and lighted by a window astern, he beheld a dozen men in the white woollen habit and black cloak of the order of St Dominic. In two rows they sat, silent and immovable as lay–figures, their hands folded within their wide sleeves, their heads bowed and cowled, all save one who stood uncovered and as if in immediate attendance upon a stately figure that sat apart, enthroned on a tall chair. A tall, handsome man of perhaps forty, he was from head to foot a flame of scarlet. A scarlet skullcap covered the tonsure to be presumed in his flowing locks of a rich brown that was almost auburn; a collar of finest point adorned the neck of his silken cassock; a gold cross gleamed on his scarlet breast. His very hands were gloved in red, and on the annular finger of his right flashed the episcopal sapphire, worn over his glove. His calm and the austerity in which he was enveloped lent him a dignity of aspect almost superhuman.

  His handsome eyes surveyed the gross fellow who had so abruptly and unceremoniously stumbled into that place. But their lofty calm remained unperturbed. It was as if he left human passions to lesser mortals, such as a bare–headed, red–faced, rather bibulous–looking friar behind him, a man, relieved by nature from recourse to the tonsuring razor, whose hairless pate rose brown and gleaming from a crown of grey, greasy curls. A very human brother, this, to judge by the fierce scowl with which he surveyed the intruder.

  Forcibly Captain Blood thrust forward the palsied Alcalde, so as to gain room to enter. Hat in hand, he stepped past him some little way, then turned to beckon him forward.

  But before he could speak, the Alcalde, apoplectic and out of breath, was demanding to know what this might mean.

  Blood was smilingly bland before that indignation. 'Is it not plain? I understand your surprise. But you'll remember that I warned you that my slaves are unusual.'

  'Slaves? These?' The Alcalde seemed to choke. 'For sale? In God's name, who are you that you dare so impious, so infernal a jest?'

  'I am called Blood, sir. Captain Blood.' And he added, with a bow, 'To serve you.'

  'Blood!' The black eyes grew almost invisible in that congested countenance. 'You are Captain Blood? You are that endemonized pirate out of hell?'

  'That is how Spain describes me. But Spain is prejudiced. Leave that, sir, and come.' Again he beckoned him, and what he said confirmed the Alcalde's worst fearful suspicions. 'Let me have the honour of presenting you to His Eminence the Cardinal–Archbishop Don Ignacio de la Fuente, the Primate of New Spain. I told you that it might be yours to welcome him sooner than you thought.'

  'God of mercy!' gurgled the Alcalde.

  Stately as a Court usher, Blood advanced a pace, and bowed low to the Cardinal. 'Eminence, condescend to receive a poor sinner who is, nevertheless, a person of some consequence in these parts: the Alcalde of the port of Havana.'

  At the same moment Don Hieronimo was thrust violently forward by the herculean arm of Wolverstone, who bawled after him: 'On your knees, sir, to ask a blessing of his Eminence.'

  The prelate's calm, inscrutable, deep–set eyes were considering the horrified officer who was now on his knees before him.

  'Eminence!' gasped Don Hieronimo, almost in tears. 'Eminence!'

  As steady as the glance was the deep, rich voice that murmured: 'Pax tibi, filius meus,' whilst in slow majesty the hand that bore the cardinalitial ring was extended to be kissed.

  Faltering 'Eminence!' yet again, the Alcalde fell upon it and bore it to his mouth as if he would eat it. 'What horror!' he wailed. 'My God, what horror! What sacrilege!'

  A smile infinitely wistful, infinitely compassionate and saintly broke upon the prelate's handsome face. 'We offer up these ills for our sins, my son, thankful, since that is so, that they are given us to endure. We are for sale, it seems, I and these poor brethren of St Dominic who accompany me and share my duress at the hands of our heretical captors. We must pray for grace to bear it with becoming fortitude, remembering that those great Apostles St Pe
ter and St Paul also suffered incarceration in the fulfilment of their sacred missions.'

  Don Hieronimo was scrambling to his feet, moving sluggishly not only from his obesity but also from overpowering emotion. 'But how could such a horror come to pass?' he groaned.

  'Let it not distress you, my son, that I should be a prisoner in the hands of this poor, blind heretic.'

  'Three errors in three words, Eminence,' was Blood's comment. 'Behold how easy is error, and let it serve as a warning against hasty judgements when you are called upon to judge, as presently you shall be. I am not poor. I am not blind. I am not a heretic. I am a true son of Mother Church. And if I have reluctantly laid violent hands upon your Eminence, it was not only so that you might be a hostage for the righting of a monstrous wrong that has been done in the name of the Catholic King and the Holy Faith, but so that in your wisdom and piety you might, yourself, deliver judgement upon the deed and the doer.'

  Through his teeth the bareheaded, red–faced little friar, leaning forward and snarling like a terrier, uttered three words of condemnation. 'Perro hereje maldito!'

  Instantly the Cardinal's gloved hand was raised imperiously to rebuke and restrain him. 'Peace, Frey Domingo!

  'I spoke, sir, of poverty and blindness of the spirit, not of the flesh,' he quietly answered Blood, and continued, addressing him in the second person singular, as if more signally to mark the gulf between them: 'For in that sense poor and blind thou art.' He sighed. More sternly still he added: 'That thou shouldst confess thyself a son of the True Church is but to confess this outrage more scandalous than I had supposed it.'

  'Suspend your judgement, Eminence, until all my motive is disclosed,' said Blood, and taking a step or two in the direction of the open door he raised his voice to call. 'Captain Walker!'

  In answer, a bow–legged, red–haired little man, all fire and truculence, advanced with a rolling gait to nod curtly to the scarlet presence, and then, arms akimbo, to confront the Alcalde.