The Chronicles of Captain Blood cb-2 Read online

  The Governor and his guest stood by whilst they were being packed into the sternsheets, whither the pikemen followed them. Then Don Pedro and Don Jayme took their places in the prow with the Negro, who carried the valise. The wherry pushed off and was rowed across the blue water to the stately ship from whose masthead floated the flag of Spain.

  They came bumping along her yellow side at the foot of the entrance–ladder, to which a sailor hitched a boathook.

  Don Pedro, from the prow of the wherry, called peremptorily for a file of musketeers to stand to order in the waist. A morioned head appeared over the bulwarks to answer him that it was done already. Then, with the pikemen urging them, and moving awkwardly and painfully in their irons, the buccaneer prisoners climbed the ladder, and dropped one by one over the ship's side.

  Don Pedro waved his black servant after them with the valise, and finally invited Don Jayme to precede him aboard. Himself, Don Pedro followed close, and when at the ladder's head Don Jayme came to a sudden halt, it was Don Pedro's continuing ascent that thrust him forward, and this so sharply that he almost tumbled headlong into the vessel's waist. There were a dozen ready hands to steady him, and a babble of voices to give him laughing welcome. But the voices were English, and the hands belonged to men whose garments and accoutrements proclaimed them buccaneers. They swarmed in the waist, and already some of them were at work to strike the irons from Wolverstone and his teams.

  Gasping, livid, bewildered, Don Jayme de Villamarga swung round to Don Pedro, who followed. That very Spanish gentleman had paused at the head of the ladder, and stood there steadying himself by a ratline, surveying the scene below him. He was calmly smiling.

  «You have nothing to apprehend, Don Jayme. I give you my word for that. And my word is good. I am Captain Blood.»

  He came down to the deck under the stare of the bulging eyes of the Governor, who understood nothing. Before enlightenment finally came, his dull, bewildered wits were to understand still less.

  A tall, slight gentleman, very elegantly arrayed, stepped forward to meet the Captain. This, to the Governor's increasing amazement, was his wife's cousin, Don Rodrigo. Captain Blood greeted him in a friendly manner.

  «I have brought your ransom, as you see, Don Rodrigo.» And he waved a hand in the direction of the group of manacled prisoners. «You are free now to depart with Don Jayme. We'll cut short our farewells, for we take up the anchor at once. Hagthorpe, give the order.»

  Don Jayme thought that he began to understand. Furiously, he turned upon this cousin of his wife's.

  «My God, are you in this? Have you plotted with these enemies of Spain to … ?»

  A hand gripped his shoulder, and a boatswain's whistle piped somewhere forward. «We are weighing the anchor,» said Captain Blood. «You were best over the side, believe me. It has been an honour to know you. In future be more respectful to your wife. Go with God, Don Jayme.»

  The Governor found himself, as in a nightmare, bustled over the side and down the ladder. Don Rodrigo followed him after taking courteous leave of Captain Blood.

  Don Jayme collapsed limply in the sternsheets of the wherry as it put off. But soon he roused himself furiously to demand an explanation whilst at the same time overwhelming his companion with threats.

  Don Rodrigo strove to preserve his calm. «You had better listen. I was on that ship, the San Tomas, on my way to San Domingo when Blood captured her. He put the crew ashore on one of the Virgin Islands. But me he retained for ransom because of my rank.»

  «And to save your skin and your purse you made this infamous bargain with him?»

  «I have said that you had better listen. It was not so at all. He treated me honourably, and we became in some sort friends. He is a man of engaging ways as you may have discovered. In the course of our talks he gleaned from me a good deal of my private life and yours, which in a way, through my cousin Hernanda, is linked with it. A week ago, after the capture of the men who had gone ashore with Wolverstone, he decided to use the knowledge he had gained; that and my papers, of which he had, of course, possessed himself. He told me what he intended to do, and promised me that if by the use of my name and the rest he succeeded in delivering those followers of his, he would require no further ransom from me.»

  «And you? You agreed?

  «Agreed? Sometimes, indeed often, you are fatuous. My agreement was not asked. I was merely informed. Your own foolishness and the order of Saint James of Compostella did the rest. I suppose he conferred it upon you, and so dazzled you with it that you were prepared to believe anything he told you.»

  «You were bringing it to me? It was among your papers?» quoth Don Jayme, who thought he began to understand

  There was a grim smile on Don Rodrigo's long, sallow face. «I was taking it to the Governor of Hispaniola, Don Jayme de Guzman, to whom the letter was addressed.»

  Don Jayme de Villamarga's mouth fell open. He turned pale. «Not even that, then? The order was not intended for me? It was part of his infernal comedy?»

  «You should have examined the letter more attentively.»

  «It was damaged by sea–water!» roared the Governor furiously.

  «You should have examined your conscience then. It would have told you that you had done nothing to deserve the cross of Saint James.»

  Don Jayme was too stunned to resent the gibe. Not until he was home again and in the presence of his wife did he recover himself sufficiently to hector her with the tale of how he had been bubbled. Thus he brought upon himself his worst humiliation.

  «How does it come, madam,» he demanded, «that you recognized him for your cousin?»

  «I did not,» she answered him, and dared at last to laugh at him, taking payment in that moment for all the browbeating she had suffered at his hands.

  «You did not! You mean that you knew he was not your cousin?»

  «That is what I mean.»

  «And you did not tell me?» The world was rocking about him.

  «You would not allow me. When I told him that I did not remember that my cousin Pedro had blue eyes, you told me that I never remembered anything, and you called me ninny. Because I did not wish to be called ninny again before a stranger, I said nothing further.»

  Don Jayme mopped the sweat from his brow, and appealed in livid fury to her cousin Rodrigo, who stood by. «And ,what do you say to that?» he demanded.

  «For myself, nothing. But I might remind you of Captain Blood's advice to you at parting. I think it was that in future you be more respectful to your wife.»

  IV — THE WAR INDEMNITY

  IF it was incredibly gallant, it was no less incredibly I foolish of the Atrevida to have meddled with the Arabella, considering the Spaniard's inferior armament and the orders under which she sailed.

  The Arabella was that Cinco Llagas out of Cadiz of which Peter Blood had so gallantly possessed himself. He had so renamed her in honour of a lady in Barbadoes whose memory was ever to serve him as an inspiration and to set restraint upon his activities as a buccaneer. She was going westward in haste to overtake her consorts, which were a full day ahead, and was looking neither to right nor to left when somewhere about 19 degrees of Northern latitude and 66 of Western longitude, the Atrevida espied her, turned aside to steer across her course, and opened the attack by a shot athwart her hawse.

  The Spaniard's commander, Don Vicente de Casanegra, was actuated by a belief in himself that was tempered by no consciousness of his limitations.

  The result was precisely what might have been expected. The Arabella went promptly about on a southern tack which presently brought her on to the Atrevida's windward quarter, thus scoring the first tactical advantage. Thence, whilst still out of range of the Spaniard's sakers, the Arabella poured in a crippling fire from her demi–cannons, which went far towards deciding the business. At closer quarters she followed this up with cross–bar and langrel, and so cut and slashed the Atrevida's rigging that she could no longer have fled, even had Don Vicente been prudently dispo
sed to do so. Finally within pistol–range the Arabella hammered her with a broadside that converted the trim Spanish frigate into a staggering, impotent hulk. When, after that, they grappled, the Spaniards avoided death by surrender, and it was to Captain Blood himself that the grey–faced, mortified Don Vicente delivered up his sword.

  «This will teach you not to bark at me when I am passing peacefully by,» said Captain Blood. «I see that you call yourself the Atrevida. But it's more impudent than daring I'm accounting you.»

  His opinion was even lower when, in the course of investigating his capture, he found among the ship's papers a letter from the Spanish Admiral, Don Miguel de Espinosa y Valdez, containing Don Vicente's sailing orders. In these he was instructed to join the Admiral's squadron with all speed at Spanish Key off Bieque, for the purpose of a raid upon the English settlement of Antigua. Don Miguel was conveniently expressive in his letter.

  «Although,» he wrote, «his Catholic Majesty is at peace with England, yet England makes no endeavour to repress the damnable activities of the pirate Blood in Spanish waters. Therefore, it becomes necessary to make reprisals and obtain compensation for all that Spain has suffered at the hands of this indemoniated filibuster.»

  Having stowed the disarmed Spaniards under hatches — all save the rash Don Vicente, who, under parole, was taken aboard the Arabella — Blood put a prize crew into the Atrevida, patched up her wounds, and set a south–easterly course for the passage between Anegada and the Virgin Islands.

  He explained the changed intentions which this implied at a council held that evening in the great cabin and attended by Wolverstone, his lieutenant, Pitt, his shipmaster, Ogle, who commanded on the main–deck, and two representatives of the main body of his followers, one of whom, Albin, was a Frenchman. This because one third of the buccaneers aboard the Arabella at the time were French.

  He met with some opposition when he announced the intention of making for Antigua.

  This opposition was epitomized by Wolverstone, who banged the table with a fist that was like a ham, before delivering himself. «To hell with King James and all who serve him! It's enough that we never make war upon English ships or English settlements. But I'll be damned if I account it our duty to protect folk whose hands are against us.»

  Captain Blood explained. «The impending Spanish raid is in the nature of reprisals for damage suffered by Spaniards at our hands. This seems to me to impose a duty upon us. We may not be patriots, as ye say, Wolverstone and we may not be altruists. If we go to warn and remain to assist, we do so as mercenaries, whose services are to be paid for by a garrison which should be very glad to hire them. Thus we reconcile duty with profit.»

  By these arguments he prevailed.

  At dawn, having negotiated the passage, they hove to with the southernmost point of the Virgen Gorda on their starboard quarter, some four miles away. The sea being calm, Captain Blood ordered the boats of the Atrevida to be launched, and her Spanish crew to depart in them, whereafter the two ships proceeded on their way to the Leeward Islands.

  Going south of Saba with gentle breezes, they were off the west coast of Antigua on the morning of the next day, and with the Union Jack flying from the maintruck they came to cast anchor in ten fathoms on the north side of the shoal that divides the entrance to Fort Bay.

  A few minutes after noon, just as Colonel Courtney, the Captain–General of the Leeward Islands, whose seat of government was in Antigua, was sitting down to dinner with Mrs. Courtney and Captain Macartney, he was astounded by the announcement that Captain Blood had landed at Saint John's, and desired to wait upon him.

  Colonel Courtney, a tall, dried–up man of forty–five, sandy and freckled, stared with pale, red–rimmed eyes at Mr. Ives, his young secretary, who had brought the message. «Captain Blood, did you say? Captain Blood? What Captain Blood? Surely not the damned pirate of that name, the gallows–bird from Barbadoes?»

  Mr. Ives permitted himself to smile upon his Excellency's excitement. «The same, sir.»

  Colonel Courtney flung his napkin amid the dishes on the spread table, and rose, still incredulous. «And he's here? Here? Is he mad? Has the sun touched him? Stab me, I'll have him in irons for his impudence before I dine, and on his way to England before …» He broke off. «Egad!» he cried, and swung to his second in command. «We'd better have him in, Macartney.»

  Macartney's round face, as red as his coat, showed an amazement no less than the Governor's. That a rascal with a price on his head should have the impudence to pay a morning call on the governor of an English settlement was something that left Captain Macartney almost speechless and more incapable of thought than usual.

  Mr. Ives admitted into the long, cool, sparsely furnished room, a tall, spare gentleman, very elegant in a suit of biscuit–coloured taffetas. A diamond of price gleamed amid the choice lace at his throat, a diamond buckle flashed from the band of the plumed hat he carried, a long pear–shaped pearl hung from his left ear and glowed against the black curls of his periwig. He leaned upon a gold–mounted ebony cane. So unlike a buccaneer was this modish gentleman that they stared in silence into the long, lean, sardonic countenance with its high–bridged nose and eyes that looked startlingly blue and cold in a face that was burnt to the colour of a red Indian's. More and more incredulous the Colonel brought out a question with a jerk.

  «You are Captain Blood?»

  The gentleman bowed. Captain Macartney gasped and desired his vitals to be stabbed. The Colonel said «Egad!» again, and his pale eyes bulged. He looked at his pallid wife, at Macartney, and then again at Captain Blood. «You're a daring rogue. A daring rogue, egad!»

  «I see you've heard of me.»

  «But not enough to credit this. Ye'll not have come to surrender?»

  The buccaneer sauntered forward to the table. Instinctively Macartney rose.

  «If you'll be reading this it will save a world of explanations.» And he laid before his Excellency the letter from the Spanish Admiral. «The fortune of war brought it into my hands together with the gentleman to whom it is addressed.»

  Colonel Courtney read, changed colour, and handed the sheet to Macartney. Then he stared again at Blood, who spoke as if answering the stare.

  «It's here to warn you I am, and at need to serve you.»

  «To serve me?»

  «Ye seem in need of it. Your ridiculous fort will not stand an hour under Spanish gunfire, and after that you'll have these gentlemen of Castile in the town. Maybe you know how they conduct themselves on these occasions. If not, I'll be after telling you.»

  «But — stab me!» spluttered Macartney — «we're not at war with Spain.»

  Colonel Courtney turned in cold fury upon Blood. «It is you who are the author of all our woes. It is your rascalities which bring these reprisals upon us.»

  «That's why I've come. Although I think I am a pretext rather than a reason.» Captain Blood sat down. «You've been finding gold in Antigua, as I've heard. Don Miguel will have heard it too. Your militia garrison is not two hundred strong, and your fort, as I've said, is so much rubbish. I bring you a strong ship very heavily armed, and two hundred of the toughest fighting–men to be found in the Caribbean, or anywhere in the world. Of course I'm a damned pirate, and there's a price on my head, and if ye're fastidiously scrupulous ye'll have nothing to say to me. But if ye've any sense, as I hope ye have, it's thanking God ye'll be that I've come, and ye'll make terms with me.»

  «Terms?»

  Captain Blood explained himself. His men did not risk their lives for the honour and glory of it, and there were in his following a number who were French, and who therefore lacked all patriotic feeling where a British colony was concerned. They would expect a trifle for the valuable services they were about to render.

  «Also, Colonel,» Blood concluded, «there's a point of honour for you. Whilst it may be difficult for you to enter into alliance with us, there's no difficulty about hiring us, and you may pursue us again without scruple once th
is job is done.»

  The Governor looked at him with gloomy eyes. «If I did my duty I would have you in irons and send you home to England to be hanged.»

  Captain Blood was unperturbed. «Your immediate duty is to preserve the colony of which ye're governor. Ye'll perceive its danger. And the danger is so imminent that even moments may count. Ye'ld do well, faith, not to be wasting them.»

  The Governor looked at Macartney. Macartney's face was as blank as his mind. Then the lady, who had sat a scared and silent witness, suddenly stood up. Like her husband she was tall and angular, and a tropical climate had prematurely aged her and consumed her beauty. Apparently, thought Blood, it had not consumed her reason.

  «James, how can you hesitate? Think of what will happen to the women — the women and the children — if these Spaniards land. Remember what they did at Bridgetown.»

  The Governor stood with his chin upon his breast, frowning gloomily. «Yet I cannot enter into alliance with … I cannot make terms with outlaws. My duty here is clear. Quite clear.» There was finality in his tone.

  «Fiat officium, ruat coelum,» said the classical–minded Blood. He sighed, and rose. «If that's your last word, I'll be wishing you a very good day. I've no mind to be caught unawares by the Caribbean squadron.»

  «You don't leave,» said the Colonel sharply. «There, too, my duty is clear. The guard, Macartney.»

  «Och, don't be a fool now, Colonel.» Blood's gesture arrested Macartney.

  «I'm not a fool, sir, and I know what becomes me. I must do my duty.»

  «And is your duty demanding so scurvy a return for the valuable service I've already rendered you by my warning? Give it thought now, Colonel.»

  Again the Colonel's lady acted as Blood's advocate, and acted passionately in her clear apprehension of the only really material issue.

  Exasperated, the Colonel flung himself down into his chair again. «But I cannot. I will not make terms with a rebel, an outlaw, a pirate. The dignity of my office … I … I cannot.»

  In his heart Captain Blood cursed the stupidity of governments that sent such men as this to represent them overseas.