Captain Blood (Penguin Classics)

by Rafael Sabatini

  At first that was the general cry. Then came the consideration that only two of the buccaneer ships were sea-worthy—and these could not accommodate the whole force, particularly being at the moment indifferently victualed for a long voyage. The crews of the Lachesis and Atropos and with them their captains, Wolverstone and Yberville, renounced the intention. After all, there would be a deal of treasure still hidden in Cartagena. They would remain behind to extort it whilst fitting their ships for sea. Let Blood and Hagthorpe and those who sailed with them do as they pleased.

  Then only did Blood realize the rashness of his proposal, and in attempting to draw back he almost precipitated a battle between the two parties into which that same proposal had now divided the buccaneers. And meanwhile those French sails on the horizon were growing less and less. Blood was reduced to despair. If he went off now, Heaven knew what would happen to the town, the temper of those whom he was leaving being what it was. Yet if he remained, it would simply mean that his own and Hagthorpe’s crews would join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable. Unable to reach a decision, his own men and Hagthorpe’s took the matter off his hands, eager to give chase to Rivarol. Not only was a dastardly cheat to be punished, but an enormous treasure was to be won by treating as an enemy this French commander who, himself, had so villainously broken the alliance.

  When Blood, torn as he was between conflicting considerations, still hesitated, they bore him almost by main force aboard the Arabella.

  Within an hour, the water-casks at least replenished and stowed aboard, the Arabella and the Elizabeth put to sea upon that angry chase.

  “When we were well at sea, and the Arabella’s course was laid,” writes Pitt, in his log, “I went to seek the Captain, knowing him to be in great trouble of mind over these events. I found him sitting alone in his cabin, his head in his hands, torment in the eyes that stared straight before him, seeing nothing.”

  “What now, Peter?” cried the young Somerset mariner. “Lord, man, what is there here to fret you? Surley ’t isn’t the thought of Rivarol!”

  “No,” said Blood thickly. And for once he was communicative. It may well be that he must vent the thing that oppressed him or be driven mad by it. And Pitt, after all, was his friend and loved him, and, so, a proper man for confidences. “But if she knew! If she knew! O God! I had thought to have done with piracy; thought to have done with it for ever. Yet here have I been committed by this scoundrel to the worst piracy that ever I was guilty of. Think of Cartagena! Think of the hell those devils will be making of it now! And I must have that on my soul!”

  “Nay, Peter—’t isn’t on your soul; but on Rivarol’s. It is that dirty thief who has brought all this about. What could you have done to prevent it?”

  “I would have stayed if it could have availed.”

  “It could not, and you know it. So why repine?”

  “There is more than that to it,” groaned Blood. “What now? What remains? Loyal service with the English was made impossible for me. Loyal service with France has led to this; and that is equally impossible hereafter. What remains, then? Piracy? I have done with it. Egad, if I am to live clean, I believe the only thing is to go and offer my sword to the King of Spain.”

  But something remained—the last thing that he could have expected—something towards which they were rapidly sailing over the tropical, sunlit sea. All this against which he now inveighed so bitterly was but a necessary stage in the shaping of his odd destiny.

  Setting a course for Hispaniola, since they judged that thither must Rivarol go to refit before attempting to cross to France, the Arabella and the Elizabeth ploughed briskly northward with a moderately favorable wind for two days and nights without ever catching a glimpse of their quarry. The third dawn brought with it a haze which circumscribed their range of vision to something between two and three miles, and deepened their growing vexation and their apprehension that M. de Rivarol might escape them altogether.

  Their position then—according to Pitt’s log—was approximately 75˚ 30’ W. Long. by 17˚ 45’ N. Lat., so that they had Jamaica on their larboard beam some thirty miles to westward, and, indeed, away to the northwest, faintly visible as a bank of clouds, appeared the great ridge of the Blue Mountains whose peaks were thrust into the clear upper air above the low-lying haze. The wind, to which they were sailing very close, was westerly, and it bore to their ears a booming sound which in less experienced ears might have passed for the breaking of surf upon a lee shore.

  “Guns!” said Pitt, who stood with Blood upon the quarter-deck. Blood nodded, listening.

  “Ten miles away, perhaps fifteen—somewhere off Port Royal, I should judge,” Pitt added. Then he looked at his captain. “Does it concern us?” he asked.

  “Guns off Port Royal . . . that should argue Colonel Bishop at work. And against whom should he be in action but against friends of ours? I think it may concern us. Anyway, we’ll stand in to investigate. Bid them put the helm over.”

  Close-hauled they tacked aweather, guided by the sound of combat, which grew in volume and definition as they approached it. Thus for an hour, perhaps. Then, as, telescope to his eye, Blood raked the haze, expecting at any moment to behold the battling ships, the guns abruptly ceased.

  They held to their course, nevertheless, with all hands on deck, eagerly, anxiously scanning the sea ahead. And presently an object loomed into view, which soon defined itself for a great ship on fire. As the Arabella with the Elizabeth following closely raced nearer on their north-westerly tack, the outlines of the blazing vessel grew clearer. Presently her masts stood out sharp and black above the smoke and flames, and through his telescope Blood made out plainly the pennon of St. George fluttering from her main-top.

  “An English ship!” he cried.

  He scanned the seas for the conqueror in the battle of which this grim evidence was added to that of the sounds they had heard, and when at last, as they drew closer to the doomed vessel, they made out the showy outlines of three tall ships, some three or four miles away, standing in toward Port Royal, the first and natural assumption was that these ships must belong to the Jamaica fleet, and that the burning vessel was a defeated buccaneer, and because of this they sped on to pick up the three boats that were standing away from the blazing hulk. But Pitt, who through the telescope was examining the receding squadron, observed things apparent only to the eye of the trained mariner, and made the incredible announcement that the largest of these three vessels was Rivarol’s Victorieuse.

  They took in sail and hove to as they came up with the drifting boats, laden to capacity with survivors. And there were others adrift on some of the spars and wreckage with which the sea was strewn, who must be rescued.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE SERVICE OF KING WILLIAM

  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 humorous 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 honor 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 humor 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 humorous 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 honorably 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.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE LAST FIGHT OF THE ARABELLA

  “Vhy do you vait, my friend?” growled van der Kuylen.

  “Aye—in God’s name!” snapped Willoughby.

  It was the afternoon of that same day, and the two buccaneer ships rocked gently with idly flapping sails under the lee of the long spit of land forming the great natural harbor of Port Royal, and less than a mile from the straits leading into it, which the fort commanded. It was two hours and more since they had brought up thereabouts, having crept thither unobserved by the city and by M. de Rivarol’s ships, and all the time the air had been aquiver with the roar of guns from sea and land, announcing that battle was joined between the French and the defenders of Port Royal. That long, inactive waiting was straining the nerves of both Lord Willoughby and van der Kuylen.

  “You said you vould show us zome vine dings. Vhere are dese vine dings?”

  Blood faced them, smiling confidently. He was arrayed for battle, in back-and-breast of black steel. “I’ll not be trying your patience much longer. Indeed, I notice already a slackening in the fire. But it’s this way, now: there’s nothing at all to be gained by precipitancy, and a deal to be gained by delaying, as I shall show you, I hope.”