The Fortunes of Captain Blood cb-3 Page 19

  Then, hoping against hope in her despair, she caught his arm in her two hands and changed her tone to one of pleading.

  'Jorgito…'

  But Mr Fairfax, you'll have gathered, was not a patient man. He would be plagued no further. He flung her off with a violence that sent her hurtling against the bulkhead at her back. His evil temper was now thoroughly aroused, and it may have been rendered the more savage because his impetuous movement brought a twinge of pain to his wounded shoulder.

  'Enough of that whining, my girl. Devil take you if you haven't set me bleeding again. Ye'll meddle in things you understand and not in my affairs. D'ye think a man's to be pestered so? Ye'll have to learn different afore we're acquainted much longer. Ye will so, by God?' Peremptorily he ended: 'Get you to bed.'

  As she still lingered, winded where he had flung her, white–faced, aghast, incredulous, annoying him by the reproach of her stare, he raised his voice in fury. 'D'ye hear me? Get you to bed, rot you! Go!'

  She went without another word, so swiftly and quietly that she left him with a sense of something ominous. Uneasy, a sudden suspicion of treachery crossing his mind, he got gingerly down from his bed, despite his condition, and staggered to the door, to spy upon her thence. He was just in time to see her vanish through the doorway of the stateroom opposite, and a moment later, from beyond her closed door, a sound of desolate sobbing reached him across the cabin.

  His upper lip curled as he listened. At least, it had not occurred to her to betray his intentions to Captain Blood. Not that it would matter much if she did. Tim and the six hands aboard would easily account for the buccaneer if he should make trouble. Still, the notion might come to her, and it would be safer to provide.

  He bawled the name of Alcatrace, who lay stretched, asleep, on the stern locker. The steward, awakened by the call, leapt up to answer it, and received from Fairfax stern, clear orders to remain awake and on guard so as to see that Doña Isabela did not leave the couch. At need, he was to employ violence to prevent it.

  Then, with the help of Alcatrace, Fairfax crawled back to his bed, re–settled himself, and soon a heavy list to starboard informing him that they had gone about, this man who accounted his fortune made allowed himself to sink at last into an exhausted sleep.

  IV

  It should have occurred to them that the list to starboard so reassuring to Mr George Fairfax must present a riddle to Captain Blood if he should happen still to be awake. And awake it happened that he was.

  He had doffed no more than his coat and his shoes, and he lay in shirt and breeches in the hammock they had slung for him in the stuffy narrow spaces of the cuddy, vainly wooing a slumber that held aloof. He was preoccupied, and not at all on his own behalf. Not all the rude ways that he had followed and the disillusions that he had suffered had yet sufficed to extinguish the man's sentimental nature. In the case of the little lady of the house of Sotomayor, he found abundant if disturbing entertainment for it this night. He was perplexed and perturbed by the situation in which he discovered her, so utterly in the power of a man who was not merely and unmistakably a scoundrel, but a crude egotist of little mind and less heart. Captain Blood reflected upon the misery and heart–break that so often will follow upon an innocent girl's infatuation for just such a man, who has obtained empire over her by his obvious but flashy vigour and the deceptive ardour of his wooing. In the buccaneer's sentimental eyes she was as a dove in the talons of a hawk, and he would give a deal to deliver her from them before she was torn to pieces. But it was odds that in her infatuation she would not welcome that deliverance, and even if, proving an exception to the rule, she should lend an ear to the sense that Blood could talk to her, he realized that he was in no case to offer her assistance, however ardently he might desire to do so.

  With a sigh, he sought to dismiss a problem to which he could supply no happy solution; but it persisted until that list to starboard of a ship that hitherto had ridden on an even keel came to divert his attention into other channels. Was it possible, he wondered, that the wind could have veered with such suddenness? It must be so, because nothing else would explain the fact observed; at least, nothing else that seemed reasonable.

  Nevertheless, he was moved to ascertain. He eased himself out of the hammock, groped for his coat and his shoes, put them on, and made his way by the gangway to the ship's waist.

  Here one of the hands squatted on the hatch–coaming, softly singing, and at the break of the low poop the helmsman stood at the whipstaff. But Blood asked no questions of either of them. He preferred instead to obtain from the heavens the information that he sought, and the clear, starry sky told him all that he required to know. The North Star was abeam on the starboard quarter. Thus he obtained the surprising knowledge that they had gone about.

  Always prudently mistrustful of anything that appeared to be against reason, he climbed the poop in quest of Tim. He beheld him pacing there, a burly silhouette against the light from the two tall stern lanterns, and he stepped briskly towards him.

  To the ship–master, Captain Blood's advent was momentarily disconcerting. At that very instant he had been asking himself whether sufficient time had been given their passenger to be fast asleep, so that they might tie him up in his hammock without unnecessary ado. Recovering from his surprise, Tim jovially hailed the Captain as he advanced across the canting deck.

  'A fine night, sir.'

  Blood took a devious way to his ends, by an answer that applied a test. 'I see the wind has changed.'

  'Ay,' the ship–master answered with alacrity. 'It was uncommon sudden. It's come to blow hard from the south.'

  'That'll be delaying us in making Port Royal.'

  'If it holds. But maybe it'll change again.'

  'Maybe it will,' said Blood. 'We'll pray for it.'

  Pacing together; they had come to the rail. They leaned upon it, and looked down at the dark water and the white, luminous edge of the wave that curled away from the ship's flank.

  Blood made philosophy. 'A queer, uncertain life, this seafaring life, Tim, at the mercy of every wind that blows, driving us now in one direction, now in another, sometimes helping, sometimes hindering, and sometimes defeating and destroying us. I suppose you love your life, Tim?'

  'What a question! To be sure I love my life.'

  'And ye'll have the fear of death that's common to us all?'

  'Od rot me! Ye're talking like a parson.'

  'Maybe. Ye see it's opportune to remind you that ye're mortal, Tim. We're all apt to forget it at times and place our self in dangers that are entirely unnecessary. Mortal dangers. Just such a danger as you stand in this very minute, Tim.'

  'What's that?' Tim took his elbows from the rail.

  'Now don't be moving,' said Blood gently. His hand was inside the breast of his coat, and from the region of it, under cover of the cloth, something hard and tubular was pressed closely into the mate's side just below the ribs. 'My finger's on the trigger, Tim, and if ye were to move suddenly ye might startle me into pulling it. Put your elbows back on the rail, Tim darling while we talk. Ye've nothing to fear. I've no notion of hurting you; that is, provided ye're reasonable, as I think ye will be. Tell me now: Why are we going back to the Main?'

  Tim was gasping in mingled surprise and fear, and his fear was greater perhaps than it need have been because he knew now beyond doubt with whom he had to deal. The sweat stood in cold beads on his brow.

  'Going back to the Main?' he faltered stupidly

  'Just so. Why have ye gone about? And why did ye lie to me about a south wind? D'ye think I'm such a lubber that I can't tell north from south on a clear night like this? Ye're no better than a fool, it seems. But unless ye get sense enough not to lie to me again, ye'll never tell another lie to anyone after this night. Now I'll be asking you again: Why are we going back to the Main? And don't tell me it's Fairfax you're selling.'

  There was on Tim's part a thoughtful, hard–breathing pause. Blood might have made him afraid to l
ie, but he was still more afraid to speak the truth since it was what it was. 'Who else should it be?' he growled.

  'Tim, Tim! Ye're lying to me again despite my warning. And your lies have the queer quality of telling me the truth. For if ye were meaning to sell Fairfax, it's La Hacha ye'ld be making for; and if ye were making for La Hacha ye'ld never be reaching so far on this westerly tack unless ye're a lubberly idiot, which I perceive ye're not. I'm saving you the trouble of lying again, Tim, for that — I vow to God — would certainly be the death of you. D'ye know who I am? Let me have the truth of that too. Do you?'

  It was just because he did know who his questioner was that, having twice been so easily caught out in falsehood by this man's acuteness, the master stood chilled and palsied, never doubting that if he moved his inside would be blown out by that pistol in his flank. Fear at last tore the truth from him.

  'I do, Captain. But…'

  'Whisht now! Don't be committing suicide by telling me another falsehood; and there's no need. There's no need to tell me more. I know the rest. Ye're heading for Carthagena, of course. That's the market for the goods you carry, and the Marquis of Riconete is your buyer. If the notion is yours, Tim, I can forgive it. For you owe me nothing, and there's no reason in the world why ye shouldn't be earning fifty thousand pieces of eight by sellin' me to Spain. Is the notion yours, now?'

  Vehemently Tim invoked the heavenly hierarchy to bear witness that he had done no more than obey the orders of Fairfax, who alone had conceived this infamous notion of making for Carthagena. He was still protesting when Blood cut into that flow of blasphemy–reinforced assertion.

  'Yes, yes. I believe you. I had a notion that he recognized me when I spoke of landing on Tortuga. It was incautious of me. But, bad cess to him! — I'd saved his mangy life, and I thought that even the worst blackguard in the Caribbean would hesitate before… No matter. Tell me this: What share were you to have of the blood money, Tim?'

  'Five thousand pieces, he promised,' said Tim, hang–dog.

  'Glory be! Is that all! Ye can't be much of a hand at a bargain; and that's not the only kind of fool you are. How long did you think you'ld live to enjoy the money? Or perhaps you didn't think. Well, think now, Tim, and maybe it'll occur to you that when it was known, as known it would be, how he'd earned it, my buccaneers would hunt you to the ends of the seas. Ye should reflect on these things, Tim, when ye go partners with a scoundrel. Ye'll be wiser to throw in your lot with me, my lad. And if it's five thousand pieces you want, faith, you may still earn them by taking my orders whilst I'm aboard this brig. Do that, and you may call for the money at Tortuga when you please, and be sure of safe–conduct. You have my word for that. And I am Captain Blood.'

  Tim required no time for reflection. From the black shadow of imminent death that had been upon him, he saw himself suddenly not only offered safety but a reward as great as that which villainy would have brought him, and free from those overlooked risks to which Blood had just drawn his attention.

  'I take the Almighty to be my witness…' he was beginning with fervour, when again Blood cut him short.

  'Now don't be wasting breath on oaths, for I put no trust in them. My trust is in the gold I offer on the one hand and the lead on the other. I'm not leaving your side from this moment, Tim. I've conceived a kindness for you, my lad. And if I take my pistol from your ribs, don't be presuming upon that. It stays primed and cocked. Ye've no pistols of your own about you, I hope.' He ran his left hand over the master's body, as he spoke, so as to assure himself. 'Very well. We'll not go about again as you might be supposing, because we are still going back to the Main. But not to Carthagena. It's for La Hacha that we'll be steering a course. So you'll just be stepping to the poop–rail with me, and bidding them put the helm over. Ye've run far enough westward. It's more than time we were on the other tack if we are to make La Hacha by morning. Come along now.'

  Obediently the master went with him, and from the rail, piped the hands to quarters. When all was ready, his deep voice rang out.

  'Let go, and haul!' and a moment later, in response, the foreyards ran round noisily, the deck came level and then canted to larboard, and the brig was heading southwest.

  V

  All through that clear June night Captain Blood and the master of the Heron remained side by side on the poop of the brig, whether sitting or standing or going ever and anon to the rail to issue orders to the crew. And though the voice was always Tim's the orders were always Captain Blood's.

  Tim gave him no trouble, it never being in his mind to change a state of things which suited his rascality so well. The reckoning there might have to be with Fairfax gave him no concern. In the main there was silence between them. But when the first grey light of dawn was creeping over the sea, Tim ventured a question that had been perplexing him.

  'Sink me if I understand why ye should be wanting to go back to La Hacha. I thought as you was running away from it. Why else did ye ever consent to stop aboard when we weighed anchor?'

  Blood laughed softly. 'Maybe it's as well ye should know. Ye'll be the better able to explain things to Mr Fairfax in case they should not be altogether clear to him.

  'Ye may find it hard to believe from what you know of me, but there's a streak of chivalry in my nature, a remnant from better days; for indeed, it was that same chivalry that made me what I am. And ye're not to suppose that it's Fairfax I'm taking back to La Hacha and the vengeance of the house of Sotomayor. For I don't care a louse what may happen to the blackguard, and I'm not by nature a vindictive man.

  'It's the little hidalga I'm concerned for. It's entirely on her account that we're going back, now that I've sounded the nasty depths of this fellow to whom in a blind evil hour she entrusted herself. We're going to restore her to her family, Tim, safe and undamaged, God be praised. It's little thanks I'm likely to get for it from her. But that may come later, when with a riper knowledge of the world she may have some glimpse of the hell from which I am delivering her.'

  Here was something beyond Tim's understanding. He swore in his amazement. Also it placed in jeopardy, it seemed to him, the five thousand pieces he was promised.

  'But if ye was running away from La Hacha, there must be danger for ye there. Are ye forgetting that?'

  'Faith, I never yet knew a danger that could prevent me from doing what I'm set on. And I'm set on this.'

  It persuaded Tim of that streak of chivalry of which Blood had boasted, a quality which the burly master of the Heron could not help regarding as a deplorable flaw in a character of so much rascally perfection.

  Ahead the growing daylight showed the loom of the coastline. But seven bells had been made before they were rippling through the greenish water at the mouth of the harbour of Rio de la Hacha, with the sun already high abeam on the larboard side.

  They ran in to find an anchorage, and from the pooprail the now weary and blear–eyed Tim continued to be the mouthpiece of the tall man who clung to him like his shadow.

  'Bid them let go.'

  The order was issued, a rattle followed from the capstan, and the Heron came to anchor within a quarter of a mile of the mole.

  'Summon all hands to the waist.'

  When the six men who composed the crew of the brig stood assembled there, Blood's next instructions followed. 'Bid them take the cover from the main hatch.'

  It was done at once.

  'Now order them all down into the hold. Tell them they are to stow it for cargo to be taken aboard.'

  It may have puzzled them, but there was no hesitation to obey, and as the last man disappeared into the darkness, Blood drew the master to the companion. 'You'll go and join them, Tim, if you please.'

  There was a momentary rebellion. 'Sink me, Captain, can't you — '

  'You'll go and join them,' Blood insisted. 'At once.'

  Under the compulsion of that tone and of the eyes so blue and cold that looked with deadly menace into his own, Tim's resistance crumbled, and obediently he climbed down
into the hold.

  Captain Blood, following close upon his heels, dragged the heavy wooden cover over the hatchway again, and dumped it down, insensible to the storm of howling from those he thus imprisoned in the bowels of the brig.

  The noise they made aroused Mr Fairfax from an exhausted slumber, on one side of the cabin, and Doña Isabela from a despondent listlessness on the other.

  Mr Fairfax, realizing at once that they were at anchor, and puzzled to the point of uneasiness by the fact, wondering, indeed, whether he could have slept the round of the clock, got stiffly from his couch and staggered to the port. It happened to look out towards the open sea, so that all that he beheld was the green, ruffled water, and some boats at a little distance. Clearly, then, they were in harbour. But in what harbour? It was impossible that they could be in Carthagena. But if in Carthagena, where the devil were they?

  He was still asking himself this question when his attention was caught by sounds in the main cabin. He could hear the liquid voice of Alcatrace raised in alarmed, insistent protest.

  'De orders, ma'am, are dat you not leabe de cabin. Cap'n's orders, ma'am.'

  Doña Isabela, who from her port on the brig's other side had seen and recognized the mole of Rio de la Hacha, without understanding how they came there and without thought even to inquire, had flung in breathless excitement from her stateroom. The resolute negro confronting her and arresting her intended flight almost turned her limp with the sickness of frustration.

  'Please, Alcatrace. Please!' On an inspiration she snatched at the pearls in her hair and tore them free. She held them out to him.

  'I give you these, Alcatrace. Let me pass.'

  What she would do when she had passed and even if she gained the deck she did not stay to think. She was offering all that remained her to bribe a passage of the first obstacle.

  The negro's eyes gleamed covetously. But the fear of Fairfax, who might be awake and overhearing, was stronger than his greed. He closed his eyes and shook his head.