The Chronicles of Captain Blood cb-2

Home > Literature > The Chronicles of Captain Blood cb-2 > Page 10
The Chronicles of Captain Blood cb-2 Page 10

by Rafael Sabatini


  And then, before the Admiral could even conjecture what had happened to him, the gloom to larboard was split by flame, the silence smashed by a roar of guns, the rending of timbers, and the crashing fall of spars, as the demi–cannons landed from the Arabella and held in reserve until now in the dissembled earthworks, hurled their thirty–two–pound shot into the Spanish flagship at merciless short range. The deadly accuracy of these guns might have revealed to Colonel Courtney precisely why Captain Blood had elected to sink the Atrevida by gunfire, instead of scuttling her. Thus he had obtained the exact range which enabled him to fire so accurately through the darkness. One frantic, wildly aimed broadside the Virgen discharged in answer before, smashed and riddled and held above water only by the hulk on which she had stuck fast, the Admiral abandoned her. With his survivors he clambered aboard one of the frigates, the Indiana, which, unable to check her way in time, had crashed into him astern. Moving very slowly, the Indiana had suffered little damage beyond a smashed bowsprit, and her captain, acting promptly, had taken in what little sail he carried.

  Mercifully at that moment the guns ashore were reloading. In that brief respite the Indiana received the fugitives from the flagship, whilst the sloop, which had been next in line, perceiving the situation, took in all sail at once, and getting out her sweeps, warped the Indiana astern from her entanglement, and out into the open, where the other frigate lay hove to firing desultorily in the direction of the now silent earthworks on the bluff. The only effect of this was to betray her whereabouts to the buccaneers, and presently the demicannons were roaring again, though no longer collectively. A shot from one of them completed the crippling of the Indiana by smashing her rudder; so that having been warped out of the harbour she had to be taken in tow by her sister ship.

  The firing ceased on both sides, and the peace and silence of the tropical night would again have descended on Saint John's but that all in the town were now afoot and hastening out to the bluff for information.

  When daylight broke, the only ship on the blue expanse of the Caribbean within the vision of Antigua was the red–hulled Arabella at anchor in the shadow of the bluff to receive the demi–cannons she had lent the enterprise, and the battered Virgen del Pilar listing heavily to starboard where she had stuck on the submerged hull of the Atrevida. About the wrecked flagship swarmed a fleet of small boats and canoes in which the buccaneers were salving every object of value to be found aboard her. They brought all ashore: arms and armour, some of great price, a service of gold plate, vessels of gold and silver, two steelbound coffers, being presumably the treasury of the squadron and containing some six thousand pieces of eight, besides jewels, clothes, Oriental carpets, and rich brocades from the great cabin. All were piled up beside the fort for subsequent division as provided by the articles under which the buccaneers sailed.

  A string of four pack–mules came along the shallow cliff as the salving was concluded, and drew up beside the precious heap.

  «What's this?» quoth Blood, who was present at the spot.

  «From his Excellency the Captain–General,» replied the Negro muleteer, «fo' dah conveying ob dah treasure.»

  Blood was taken aback. When he recovered, «Much obliged,» said he, and ordered the mules to be laden, and conducted to the end of the bluff, to the boats which were to carry the spoils aboard the Arabella.

  After that he went to wait upon the Captain–General.

  He was shown into a long, narrow room from one end of which a portrait of his late sardonic majesty King Charles II looked into a mirror on the other. There was a long, narrow table on which stood some books, a guitar, a bowl of heavily scented white acacia, and there were some tall–backed chairs of black oak without upholstery.

  The Captain–General came in followed by Macartney. His face looked longer and narrower than ever.

  Captain Blood, telescope under his arm and plumed hat in his hand, bowed low.

  «I come to take my leave, your Excellency.»

  «I was about to send for you.» The Colonel's pale eyes sought to meet the Captain's steady gaze, but failed. «I hear of considerable treasure taken from the Spanish wreck. I am told you men have carried this aboard your ship. You are aware, sir — or are you not? — that these spoils are the property of the King.»

  «I am not aware of it,» said Captain Blood.

  «You are not? Then I inform you of it now.»

  Captain Blood shook his head, smiling tolerantly. «It is a prize of war.»

  «Exactly. And the war was being waged on behalf of his Majesty and in defence of this his Majesty's colony.»

  «Save that I did not hold the King's commission.»

  «Tacitly, and temporarily, I granted it you when I consented to enlist you and your men in the defence of the island.»

  Blood stared at him in amused astonishment. «What were you, sir, before they made you Captain–General of the Leeward Islands? A lawyer?»

  «Captain Blood, I think you mean to be insolent.»

  «You may be sure I do, and more. You consented to enlist me, did you? Here's condescension! Where should you be now if I hadn't brought you the assistance you consented to receive?»

  «We will take one thing at a time, if you please.» The Colonel was coldly prim. «When you entered the service of King James, you became subject to the laws that govern his forces. Your appropriation of treasure from the Spanish flagship is an act of brigandage contrary to all those laws and severely punishable under them.»

  Captain Blood found the situation increasingly humorous. He laughed.

  «My clear duty,» added Colonel Courtney, «is to place you under arrest.»

  «But I hope you're not thinking of performing it?»

  «Not if you choose to take advantage of my leniency, and depart at once.»

  «I'll depart as soon as I receive the twenty thousand pieces of eight for which I hired you my services.»

  «You have chosen, sir, to take payment in another fashion. You have committed a breach of the law. I have nothing more to say to you, Captain Blood.»

  Blood considered him with narrowing eyes. Was the man so utterly a fool, or was he merely dishonest?

  «Oh, sharper than the serpent's tooth!» he laughed. «Sure now I must spend the remainder of my days in succouring British colonies in distress. Meanwhile, here I am and here I stay until I have my twenty thousand pieces.» He flung his hat on the table, drew up a chair, sat down, and crossed his legs. «It's a warm day, Colonel, so it is.»

  The Colonel's eyes flashed. «Captain Macartney, the guard is waiting in the gallery. Be good enough to call it.»

  «Will ye be intending to arrest me?»

  The Colonel's eyes gloomed at him. «Naturally, sir. It is my clear duty. It has been my duty from the moment that you landed here. You show me that I should have considered nothing else whatever my own needs.» He waved a hand to the soldier who had paused by the door. «If you please, Captain Macartney.»

  «Oh, a moment yet, Captain Macartney. A moment yet, Colonel.» Blood raised his hand. «This amounts to a declaration of war.»

  The Colonel shrugged contemptuously. «You may so regard it if you choose. It is not material.»

  Captain Blood's doubts about the man's honesty were completely dissipated. He was just a fool with a mental vision that could perceive one object only at a time.

  «Indeed, and it's most material. Since you declare war on me, war you shall have; and I warn you that you'll find me as ruthless an opponent as the Spaniards found me yesterday when I was your ally.»

  «By God!» swore Macartney. «Here's fine talk from a man whose person we hold!»

  «Others have held me before, Captain Macartney. Don't be attaching too much importance to that.» He paused to smile, and then resumed. «It's fortunate now for Antigua that the war you have declared on me may be fought without bloodshed. Indeed, you may perceive at a glance that it has been fought already, that the strategic advantages lie with me, and, therefore, that nothing remains
for you but capitulation.»

  «I perceive nothing of the kind, sir.»

  «That is because you are slow to perceive the obvious. I am coming to think that at home they regard this as a necessary qualification in a Colonial Governor. A moment's patience, Colonel, while I point out to you that my ship is off the harbour. She carries two hundred of the toughest fighting–men, who would devour your spineless militia at a gulp. She carries forty guns, the half of which could be landed on the bluff within an hour, and within another hour Saint John's would be a dust–heap. If you think they would hesitate because this colony is English, I'll remind you that a third of my following is French and the other two thirds are outlaws like myself. They would sack this town with pleasure, firstly because it is held in the name of King James, a name detestable to all of them, and secondly because the gold you have been finding in Antigua should make it well worth the sacking.»

  Macartney, purple in the face, was fingering his sword–hilt. But it was the Colonel, livid with passion, who answered, waving one of his bony, freckled hands.

  «You infamous pirate scoundrel! You damned escaped convict! You've forgot one thing: that until you can get back to your pestilential buccaneers, none of this can happen.»

  «We have to thank him for the warning, sir,» Captain Macartney jeered.

  «Ah, bah! Ye've no imagination, as I suspected yesterday. Your muleteer gave me a glimpse of what to expect from you. I took my measures accordingly, so I did. I left orders with my lieutenant to assume at twelve o'clock that war had been declared, and to land the guns and haul them to the fort, whence they command the town. I left your mules with him for the purpose.» He glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel. «It's nearly half–past twelve already. From your windows here you can see the fort.» He stood up and proffered his telescope. «Assure yourself that what I have said is happening.»

  There was a pause in which the Captain–General considered him with eyes of hate. Then in silence he took the telescope and went to the window. When he turned from it again, he was fierce as a rattlesnake. «But you forget one thing still. That we hold you. I'll send word to your pirate scum that at the first shot from them I'll hang you. The guard, Macartney. There's been talk enough.»

  «Oh, a moment yet,» Blood begged. «Ye're so plaguily hasty in your conclusions. Wolverstone has my orders, and no threat to my life will swerve him from them by a hair's breadth. Hang me if you will.» He shrugged. «If I set great store by life, I should hardly follow the trade of a buccaneer. But when you've hanged me, be sure that not one stone of Saint John's will be left upon another, not man, woman, or child will my buccaneers spare in avenging me. Consider that, and consider at the same time your duty to this colony and to your king — this duty by which you rightly set such store.»

  The Governor's pale eyes stabbed him as if they would reach his soul. Calm and intrepid he stood before them, so calm in all the circumstances as almost to intimidate.

  The Colonel looked at Macartney, as if for help. He found none there. Irritably he broke out at last: «Oh, stab me! I am well served for dealing with a pirate! To be rid of you, I'll pay you your twenty thousand pieces, and so farewell and be damned to you.»

  «Twenty thousand pieces!» Blood raised his eyebrows in surprise. «But that was whilst I was your ally; that was before ye declared war upon me.»

  «What the devil do you mean now?»

  «That since ye admit defeat, we will pass to the discussion of terms.»

  «Terms? What terms?» The Captain–General's exasperation was swiftly mounting him.

  «You shall hear them. First, the twenty thousand pieces of eight that you owe my men for services rendered. Next, thirty thousand for the redemption of the town from the bombardment that is preparing.»

  «What? By God, sir …»

  «Next,» Captain Blood pursued relentlessly, «ten thousand pieces for your own ransom, ten thousand for the ransom of your own family, and five thousand for that of other persons of consequences in Saint John's, including Captain Macartney here. That makes seventy–five thousand pieces of eight, and they must be paid within the next hour, since later will be too late.»

  The Captain–General looked unutterable things. He tried to speak. But speech failed him. He sat down heavily. At last he found his voice. It came thick and quavering.

  «You … you abuse my patience! You surely … You think me mad?»

  «Best hang him, Colonel, and have done,» Macartney exploded.

  «And thereby destroy the colony it is your duty at all costs — at all costs, mark you — to preserve.»

  The Captain–General passed a hand across his wet, pallid brow, and groaned.

  They talked, of course, for some time yet; but ever within the circle of what had been said already, until in the end Colonel Courtney broke into a laugh that was almost hysterical.

  «Stab me, sir! It only remains to marvel at your moderation. You might have asked seven hundred thousand pieces, or seven millions …»

  «True,» Blood interrupted him. «But then I am by nature moderate, and also I have a notion of the resources of your treasury.»

  «But the time!» cried the Governor desperately, to show that he had yielded. «How can I collect the sum within an hour?»

  «I'll be reasonable. Send me the money to the bluff by sunset, and I'll withdraw. And now I'll take my leave at once, so as to suspend the operations. It's a very good day I'll be wishing you.»

  They let him go, perforce. And at sunset Captain Macartney rode out to the gun emplacements of the buccaneers followed by a Negro leading a mule on which the gold was laden.

  Captain Blood came forward alone to receive him.

  «It isn't what you'ld have got from me,» said the choleric captain through his teeth.

  «I'll remember that in case you should ever command a settlement. And now, sir, to business. What do these sacks hold?»

  «You'll find five thousand pieces in each.»

  «Then set me down four of them: the twenty thousand pieces for which I agreed to serve Antigua. The rest you can take back to the Captain–General with my compliments. Let the experience teach him, and you, too, Captain, darling, that a man's first duty is less to his office than to his own honour, and that he cannot perform it unless he fulfils the engagements of his word.»

  Captain Macartney sucked in his breath. «Gads life!» he exclaimed huskily. «And you're a pirate!»

  Sternly came the vibrant, metallic voice of the buccaneer. «I am Captain Blood.»

  V — BLOOD MONEY

  Captain Blood was pleased with the world — which is but another way of saying that he was pleased with himself.

  He stood on the mole at Cayona and surveyed the shipping in the rockbound harbour. With pride he considered the five great ships that now made up his fleet, every spar and timber of which had once been the property of Spain. There was his own flagship, the Arabella, of forty guns, that once had been the Cinco Llagas out of Cadiz, with her red bulwarks and gilded ports aflame in the evening sunlight, with the scarcely less powerful blue and white Elizabeth beside her. Beyond them rode the three smaller twenty–gun vessels captured in the great affair at Maracaybo from which Blood was lately returned. These ships, originally named the Infanta, the San Felipe, and the Santo Niño, Blood had renamed after the three Parcae, the Clotho, the Lachesis, and the Atropos, by which it was his intention playfully to convey that they were the arbiters of the fate of any Spaniard henceforth encountered by them upon the seas.

  Captain Blood took satisfaction in his own delicate, scholarly humour. He was, as I have said, well pleased with himself. His following numbered close upon a thousand men, and he could double this number whenever he pleased. For his luck was passing into a proverb, and luck is the highest quality that can be sought in a leader of hazardous enterprises. Not the great Henry Morgan himself in his best days had wielded such authority and power. Not even Montbar — surnamed by Spain the Exterminator — had been more dreaded by Spani
ards in his day that was Don Pedro Sangre, as they translated Peter Blood's name, accounting it most apt.

  Order, he knew, was being taken against him. Not only the King of Spain, of whose power he had made a mock, but also the King of England, whom he accounted, and with some reason, a contemptible fellow, were concerting measures for his destruction; and news had lately come to Tortuga that, nearer at hand, the Spanish Admiral, Don Miguel de Espinosa, who had been the latest and most terrible sufferer at his hands, had proclaimed that he would pay ten thousand pieces of eight to any man who should deliver up to him the person of Captain Blood alive. Don Miguel's was a vindictiveness that was not to be satisfied by mere death.

  Peter Blood was not intimidated, nor on that account was he likely to mistrust his luck so much as to let himself run to rust in the security of Tortuga. For that which he had suffered — and he had suffered much — at the hands of man, he had chosen to make Spain the scapegoat. Thus he accounted that he served a twofold purpose. He took compensation, and at the same time served, not indeed the Stuart King, whom he despised — although himself born an Irishman and bred a Papist — but England, and, for that matter, all the rest of civilized mankind, which cruel, treacherous, greedy, bigoted Castile sought to debar from intercourse with the New World.

  He was turning from the mole, almost deserted by now of its usual bustling heterogeneous crowd, when the voice of Hayton, the boatswain of the Arabella, called after him from the boat that had brought him ashore.

  «Back at eight bells, Captain?»

  «At eight bells,» said Blood over his shoulder, and sauntered on, swinging his long ebony cane, elegant and courtly in a suit of grey and silver.

  He took his way up towards the town, saluted as he went by most of those whom he met, and stared at by the rest. He chose to go by way of the wide, unpaved Rue du Roi de France, which the townsfolk had sought to embellish by flanking it with rows of palm–trees. As he approached the tavern of The King of France the little crowd about its portals drew to attention. From within came a steady drone of voices as a muffled accompaniment to foul exclamations, snatches of coarse songs, and the shrill, foolish laughter of women. Through all ran the rattle of dice and the clinking of drinking–cans.

 

‹ Prev