The Fortunes of Captain Blood cb-3

by Rafael Sabatini

  'Hell–fire!' he cried. 'Do you burn me, damn you?'

  'Patience, sir. Patience. It's a healing cautery.'

  The lady's arm encircled the patient's head, supporting and soothing him. Her lips lightly touched his dank brow. 'My poor Jorgito,' she murmured.

  He grunted for answer, and closed his eyes.

  Blood was tearing linen into strips. Out of these, he made a pad for the wound, applied a bandage to hold it in position, and then a second bandage, like a sling, to keep the left arm immovable against the patient's breast. Then Alcatrace found him a fresh shirt, and they passed it over the Englishman's head, leaving the left sleeve empty. The surgical task was finished.

  Blood made a readjustment of the pillows. 'Ye'll sleep in that position if you please. And you'll avoid movement as much as possible. If we can keep you quiet, you should be whole again in a week or so. Ye've had a near escape. Had the blade taken you two inches lower, it's another kind of bed we'ld be making for you this minute. Ye've been lucky, so you have.'

  'Lucky? May I burn!'

  'There's even, perhaps, something for which to render thanks.'

  If the quiet reminder brought from Fairfax no more than a grumbled oath, it stirred the lady to a sort of violence. She leaned across the narrow bed to seize both of Blood's hands. Her pale, dark face was solemnly intense. Her lips trembled, as did her voice.

  'You have been so good, so brave, so noble.'

  Before he could guess her intent, she had carried his hands to her lips and kissed them. Protesting, he wrenched them away. She smiled up at him wistfully.

  'But shall I not kiss them, then, those hands? Have they not save' my Jorgito's life? Have they not heal' his wounds? All my life I shall love those hands. All my life I shall be grateful to them.'

  Captain Blood had his doubts about this. He was not finding Jorgito prepossessing. The fellow's shallow, sloping animal brow and wide, loose–lipped mouth inspired no confidence, for all that in its total sum, and in a coarse raffish way, the face might be described as handsome. It was a face of strongly marked bone structures, the nose boldly carved, the cheek–bones prominent, the jaw long and powerful. In age, he could not have passed the middle thirties.

  His eyes, rather close–set and pale, shifted under Blood's scrutiny, and he began to mutter belated acknowledgments, reminded by the lady's outburst of what was due from him.

  'I vow, sir, I am deeply in your debt. Damn my blood! That's nothing new for me, God knows. I've been in somebody's debt ever since I can remember. But this — may I perish — is a debt of another kind. If only you had skewered for me the guts of that pimp who got away, I'ld be still more grateful to you. The world could very well do without Don Serafino de Sotomayor. Damn his blood!'

  'Señor Jesus! No digas eso, querido!' Quick and shrill came the remonstrance from the little hidalga. 'Don't say such things, my love.' To soften her protest, she stroked his cheek as she ran on, 'No, no, Jorgito. If that have happen never more will my conscience be quiet. If my brother's blood have been shed, it will kill me.'

  'And what of my blood, then? Hasn't there been enough of that shed by him and his plaguey bullies. And didn't he hope to shed it all, the damned cut–throat?'

  'Querido,' she soothed him. 'That was for protect me. He think it his duty. I could not have forgive him ever if he kill you. It would have broke my heart, Jorgito, you know. Yet I can understand Serafino. Oh, let us thank God — God and this so brave gentleman — that no worse have happen.'

  And then Tim, the big red ship–master, rolled in to inquire how Mr Fairfax fared, and to report that the course was set, that the Heron was moving briskly before a steady southerly breeze, and that already La Hacha was half a dozen miles astern. 'So all's well that ends well, sir. And we've to find quarters for this gentleman who came aboard with you. I'll have a hammock slung for him in the cuddy. See to it, Alcatrace.' He drove the negro out upon that task. 'Pronto Vamos!'

  Fairfax reclined with half–closed eyes. 'All's well that ends well,' he echoed. He laughed softly, and Blood observed that always when he laughed his loose mouth seemed to writhe in a sneer. He was recovering vigour of body and of mind with every moment now, since he had been made comfortable and the bleeding had been checked. His hand closed over the lady's where it lay upon the counterpane. 'Ay. All's well that ends well,' he repeated. 'Ye'll have the jewels safe, sweetheart?'

  'The jewels?' She started, caught her breath, and for a moment her brows were knit in thought. Then, with consternation overspreading her countenance and a hand on her heart, she came to her feet. 'The jewels!'

  Fairfax slewed his head round to look at her fully, his pale eyes suddenly wide, the brows raised. 'What now?' His voice was a croak. 'Ye have them safe?'

  Her lip quivered. 'Valga me Dios! I must have drop' the casket when Serafino overtake us.'

  There was a long hushed pause, which Blood felt to be of the kind that is the prelude of a storm. 'Ye dropped the casket!' said Fairfax. His tone was ominously quiet. He was staring at her in stupefaction, his jaw loose. 'Ye dropped the casket?' Gradually a blaze kindled in his light eyes. 'D'ye say ye dropped the casket?' This time his voice rose and cracked. 'Damn my blood! It passes belief. Hell! Ye can't have dropped it.'

  The sudden fury of him shocked her. She looked at him with frightened eyes. 'You are angry, Jorgito,' she faltered. 'But you must not be angry. That is not right. Think of what happen'. I was distracted. Your life was in danger. What were the jewels then? How can I think of jewels? I let the casket fall. I did not notice. Then when you are wounded, and I think perhaps you will die, can I think of jewels then? You see, Jorgito? It is lastima, yes. But they do not matter. We have each other. They do not matter. Let them go.'

  Her fond hand was stealing about his neck again. But in a rage he flung it off.

  'Don't matter!' he roared, his loose mouth working. 'Rot my bones! You lose a fortune; you spill thirty thousand ducats in the kennel, and you say it don't matter! Hell and the devil, girl! If that don't matter, tell me what does.'

  Blood thought it time to intervene. Gently, but very firmly, he pressed the wounded man back upon his pillows. 'Will you be quiet now, ye bellowing calf? Haven't you spilt enough of your blood this night?'

  But Fairfax raged and struggled. 'Quiet? Damn my soul! You don't understand. How can I be quiet? Quiet, when this little fool has…'

  She interrupted him there. She had drawn herself stiffly erect. Her lips were steady now her eyes more intensely black than ever.

  'Is it so much to you that I lose my jewels, George? They were my jewels. You'll please to remember that. If I lose them, I lose them, and it is my affair, my loss. And I should not count it loss in a night when I have gain' so much. Or have I not, George? Were the jewels such great matter to you? More than I, perhaps?'

  That challenge brought him to his senses. He beat a retreat before it, in the best order he could contrive, paused, and then broke into a laugh that to Blood was pure play–acting. 'What the devil! Are you angry with me, Isabelita? Plague on it! I am like that. Hot and quick. That's my nature. And thirty thousand ducats is a loss to make a man forget his manners for the moment. But the jewels? Bah! Rot the jewels. If they've gone, they've gone.' He held out a coaxing hand. 'Come, Isabelita. Kiss and forgive, sweetheart. I'll soon be buying you all the jewels you could want.'

  'I want no jewels, George.' She was not more than half–mollified. Something of the ugly suspicion he had aroused in her still lingered. But she went to him, and suffered him to put an arm about her. 'You must not be angry with me again, ever, Jorgito. If I had love' you less, I would have think more of the casket.'

  'To be sure you would, chick. To be sure.'

  Tim shuffled uncomfortably. 'I'd best get back on deck, sir.' He made shift to go, but in the doorway paused to turn to Captain Blood. 'That blackamoor will ha' slung your hammock for you.'

  'You may be showing me the way, then. There's no more I can do here for tonight.'

&nbs
p; Whilst the ship–master waited, holding the door, he spoke again. 'If this wind holds, we should make Port Royal by Sunday night or Monday morning.'

  Blood was brought to a standstill. 'Port Royal?' said he slowly. 'I'ld not care to land there.'

  Fairfax looked at him. 'Why not? It's an English settlement. You should have nothing to fear in Jamaica.'

  'Still I'ld not care to land there. What port will you be making after that?'

  The question seemed to amuse Fairfax. Again he uttered his unpleasant, fleering laugh. 'Faith, that'll depend upon a mort o things.'

  Blood's steadily rising dislike of the man sharpened his rejoinder.

  'I'ld thank you to make it depend a little upon my convenience, seeing that I'm here for yours.'

  'For mine?' Fairfax raised his light brows. 'Od rot me, now! Didn't I understand you was running away too? But we'll see what we can do. Where was you wishing to be put ashore?'

  By an effort Blood stifled his indignation and kept to the point. 'From Port Royal, it would be no great matter for you to carry me through the Windward Passage, and land me either on the northwest coast of Hispaniola or even on Tortuga.'

  'Tortuga!' There was such a quickening of the light, shifty eyes, that Blood instantly regretted that he should have mentioned the place. Fairfax was pondering him intently, and behind that searching glance it was obvious that his mind was busy. 'Tortuga, eh? So ye've friends among the buccaneers?' He laughed. 'Well, well! That's your affair, to be sure. Let the Heron make Port Royal first, and then we'll be obliging you.'

  'I'll be in your debt,' said Blood, with more than a hint of sarcasm. 'Give you good night, sir. And you, ma'am.'

  III

  For a considerable time after the door had closed upon the departing men, Fairfax lay very still and very thoughtful, his eyes narrowed, a mysterious smile on his lips.

  At long last Doña Isabela spoke softly. 'You should sleep, Jorgito. Of what do you think?'

  He made her an answer that seemed to hold no sense.

  'Of the difference the lack of a periwig makes to a man who's an Irishman and a surgeon and wants to be landed on Tortuga.'

  For a moment she wondered whether he had a touch of fever, and it increased her concern that he should sleep. She proposed to leave him. But he would not hear of it. He cursed the burning thirst he discovered in himself, and begged her to give him to drink. That same thirst continued thereafter to torment him and to keep him wakeful, so that she stayed at his side and gave him frequent draughts of water, mixed with the juice of limes, and once, on his insistent demand, with brandy.

  The night wore on, with little said between them, and after some three hours of it he turned so quiet that she thought he slept at last and was preparing to creep away, when suddenly he announced his complete wakefulness by an oath and a laugh and ordered her to summon Tim. She obeyed only because to demur would be to excite him.

  When Tim returned with her, Fairfax required to know what o'clock it might be and how far the master reckoned they had travelled. Eight bells, said Tim, had just been made, and they had put already a good forty miles between the Heron and La Hacha.

  Then came a question that was entirely odd: 'How far to Carthagena?'

  'A hundred miles maybe. Maybe a trifle more.'

  'How long to make it?'

  The ship–master's eyes became round with surprise. 'With the wind as it blows, maybe twenty–four hours.'

  'Make it, then,' was the astounding order. 'Go about at once.'

  The surprise in Tim's hot face was changed to concern.

  'Ye've the fever, Captain, surely. What should we be doing back on the Main?'

  'I've no fever, man. Ye've heard my order. Go about and lay a course for Carthagena.'

  'But Carthagena…' The mate and Doña Isabel exchanged glances.

  Surprising this, and perceiving what was in their minds, Fairfax's mouth twisted ill–humouredly. 'Od rot you! Wait!' he growled, and fell to thinking.

  Had he been in full possession of his vigour he would have admitted no partner to the evil enterprise he had in mind. He would have carried it through single–handed, keeping his own counsel. But his condition making him dependent upon the ship–master left him no choice, as he saw it, but to lay his cards upon the table.

  'Riconete is at Carthagena, and Riconete will pay fifty thousand pieces of eight for Captain Blood, dead or alive. Fifty thousand pieces of eight.' He paused a moment, and then added: 'That's a mort o' money, and there'll be five thousand pieces for you, Tim, when it's paid.'

  Tim's suspicions were now a certainty. 'To be sure. To be sure.'

  Exasperated, Fairfax snarled at him. 'God rot your bones, Tim! Are you humouring me! Ye think I have the fever. Ye'ld be the better yourself for a touch of the fever that's burning me. It might sharpen your paltry wits and quicken your sight.'

  'Ay ay,' said Tim. 'But where do we find Captain Blood?'

  'In the cuddy where you've bestowed him.'

  'Ye're light–headed, sir.'

  'Will you harp on that? Damn you for a fool. That is Captain Blood, I tell you. I recognized him the moment he asked to be landed at Tortuga. I'ld ha' known him sooner if I'ld ha' been more than half awake. He wouldn't care to land at Port Royal, he said. Of course he wouldn't. Not while Colonel Bishop is Governor of Jamaica. That'll maybe help you to understand.'

  Tim was foolishly blinking his amazement and loosed an oath or two of surprised conviction. 'Ye recognize him, d'ye say?'

  'That's what I say, and ye may believe I'm not mistook. Be off now, and put about. That first. Then you'd better see to making this fellow fast. If you take him in his sleep, it'll save trouble. Away with you.'

  'Ay, ay,' said Tim, and bustled off in a state of excitement that was tempered by no scruples.

  Doña Isabela, in a horror that had been growing steadily with understanding of what she heard, came suddenly to her feet.

  'Wait, wait! What is it you will do?'

  'No matter for you, sweetheart,' said Fairfax, and a peremptory wave of his sound hand dismissed Tim from the doorway where her voice had arrested him.

  'But it is matter for me. I understand. You cannot do this, George.'

  'Can't I? Why, the rogue'll be asleep by now. It should be easy. There'll be a surprised awakening for him; there will so.' And his fleering laugh went to increase her horror.

  'But — Dios mio! — you cannot, you cannot. You cannot sell the man who save' your life.'

  He turned his head to consider her with sneering amusement. Too much of a scoundrel to know how much of a scoundrel he was, he imagined himself opposed by a foolish, sentimental qualm that would be easily allayed. He was confident, too, of his complete ascendancy over a mind whose innocence he mistook for simplicity.

  'Rot me, child, it's a duty, no less. You don't understand. This Blood is a pirate rogue, buccaneer, thief, and assassin. The sea'll be cleaner without him.'

  She became only more vehement. 'He may be what you say — pirate, buccaneer, and the rest. Of that I know nothing. I care nothing. But I know he save' your life, and I care for that. He is here in your ship because he save' your life.'

  'That's a lie, anyway,' growled Fairfax. 'He's here because he's took advantage of my condition. He's come aboard the Heron so as to escape from the Main and the justice that is after him. Well, well. He'll find out his mistake tomorrow.'

  She wrung her hands, a fierce distress in her white face. Then, growing steadier, she pondered him very solemnly with an expression he had never yet seen on that eager face, an expression that annoyed him.

  The faith in this man, of whom, after all, she knew but little, the illusions formed about him in the course of being swept off her maiden feet by a whirlwind wooing, which had made her cast everything away so that at his bidding she might link her fortunes with his own, had been sorely disturbed by the spectacle of his coarse anger at the loss of the jewels. That faith was now in danger of being finally and tragically shattered by this
revelation of a nature which must fill her with dread and loathing once she admitted to herself the truth of what she beheld. Against this admission she was still piteously struggling. For if George Fairfax should prove, indeed, the thing she was being compelled to suspect, what could there be for her who was now so completely and irrevocably in his power?

  'George,' she said quietly, in a forced calm to which the tumult of her bosom gave the lie, 'it matters not what this man is. You owe him your life. Without him you would lie dead now in that alley in La Hacha. You cannot do what you say. It would be infamy.'

  'Infamy? Infamy be damned!' He laughed his ugly, contemptuous laugh. 'Ye just don't understand. It's a duty, I tell you — the duty of every honest gentleman to lay this pirate rogue by the heels.'

  Scorn deepened in the dark eyes that continued so disconcertingly to regard him. 'Honest? You say that! Honest to sell the man who save' your life? For fifty thousand pieces of eight, was it not? That is honest? Honest as Judas, who sell the Saviour for thirty pieces.'

  He glowered at her in resentment. Then found, as rogues will, an argument to justify himself. 'If you don't like it, you may blame yourself. If in your stupidity you hadn't lost the jewels I shouldn't need to do this. As it is, it's just a providence. For how else am I to find money for Tim and the hands, buy stores at Jamaica, and pay for the graving of the Heron against the ocean voyage? How else?'

  'How else!' There was a bitter edge to her voice now 'How else since I lost my jewels, eh? It is so. It was for that? My jewels were for that? Que verguenza?' A sob shook her. 'Dios mio, que viltad! Ay de mi! Ay de mi!'