Captain Blood

by Rafael Sabatini

  CHAPTER XVII. THE DUPES

  It was a crestfallen Captain Blood who presided over that hastilysummoned council held on the poop-deck of the Arabella in the brilliantmorning sunshine. It was, he declared afterwards, one of the bitterestmoments in his career. He was compelled to digest the fact that havingconducted the engagement with a skill of which he might justly be proud,having destroyed a force so superior in ships and guns and men that DonMiguel de Espinosa had justifiably deemed it overwhelming, his victorywas rendered barren by three lucky shots from an unsuspected batteryby which they had been surprised. And barren must their victory remainuntil they could reduce the fort that still remained to defend thepassage.

  At first Captain Blood was for putting his ships in order and making theattempt there and then. But the others dissuaded him from betraying animpetuosity usually foreign to him, and born entirely of chagrinand mortification, emotions which will render unreasonable the mostreasonable of men. With returning calm, he surveyed the situation. TheArabella was no longer in case to put to sea; the Infanta was merelykept afloat by artifice, and the San Felipe was almost as sorely damagedby the fire she had sustained from the buccaneers before surrendering.

  Clearly, then, he was compelled to admit in the end that nothingremained but to return to Maracaybo, there to refit the ships beforeattempting to force the passage.

  And so, back to Maracaybo came those defeated victors of that short,terrible fight. And if anything had been wanting further to exasperatetheir leader, he had it in the pessimism of which Cahusac did noteconomize expressions. Transported at first to heights of dizzysatisfaction by the swift and easy victory of their inferior force thatmorning, the Frenchman was now plunged back and more deeply than everinto the abyss of hopelessness. And his mood infected at least the mainbody of his own followers.

  "It is the end," he told Captain Blood. "This time we are checkmated."

  "I'll take the liberty of reminding you that you said the same before,"Captain Blood answered him as patiently as he could. "Yet you've seenwhat you've seen, and you'll not deny that in ships and guns we arereturning stronger than we went. Look at our present fleet, man."

  "I am looking at it," said Cahusac.

  "Pish! Ye're a white-livered cur when all is said."

  "You call me a coward?"

  "I'll take that liberty."

  The Breton glared at him, breathing hard. But he had no mind to asksatisfaction for the insult. He knew too well the kind of satisfactionthat Captain Blood was likely to afford him. He remembered the fate ofLevasseur. So he confined himself to words.

  "It is too much! You go too far!" he complained bitterly.

  "Look you, Cahusac: it's sick and tired I am of your perpetual whiningand complaining when things are not as smooth as a convent dining-table.If ye wanted things smooth and easy, ye shouldn't have taken to the sea,and ye should never ha' sailed with me, for with me things are neversmooth and easy. And that, I think, is all I have to say to you thismorning."

  Cahusac flung away cursing, and went to take the feeling of his men.

  Captain Blood went off to give his surgeon's skill to the wounded, amongwhom he remained engaged until late afternoon. Then, at last, he wentashore, his mind made up, and returned to the house of the Governor, toindite a truculent but very scholarly letter in purest Castilian to DonMiguel.

  "I have shown your excellency this morning of what I am capable," hewrote. "Although outnumbered by more than two to one in men, in ships,and in guns, I have sunk or captured the vessels of the great fleet withwhich you were to come to Maracaybo to destroy us. So that you are nolonger in case to carry out your boast, even when your reenforcementson the Santo Nino, reach you from La Guayra. From what has occurred, youmay judge of what must occur. I should not trouble your excellency withthis letter but that I am a humane man, abhorring bloodshed. Thereforebefore proceeding to deal with your fort, which you may deem invincible,as I have dealt already with your fleet, which you deemed invincible, Imake you, purely out of humanitarian considerations, this last offer ofterms. I will spare this city of Maracaybo and forthwith evacuate it,leaving behind me the forty prisoners I have taken, in consideration ofyour paying me the sum of fifty thousand pieces of eight and one hundredhead of cattle as a ransom, thereafter granting me unmolested passage ofthe bar. My prisoners, most of whom are persons of consideration, I willretain as hostages until after my departure, sending them back in thecanoes which we shall take with us for that purpose. If your excellencyshould be so ill-advised as to refuse these terms, and thereby imposeupon me the necessity of reducing your fort at the cost of some lives, Iwarn you that you may expect no quarter from us, and that I shall beginby leaving a heap of ashes where this pleasant city of Maracaybo nowstands."

  The letter written, he bade them bring him from among the prisonersthe Deputy-Governor of Maracaybo, who had been taken at Gibraltar.Disclosing its contents to him, he despatched him with it to Don Miguel.

  His choice of a messenger was shrewd. The Deputy-Governor was of all menthe most anxious for the deliverance of his city, the one man who on hisown account would plead most fervently for its preservation at all costsfrom the fate with which Captain Blood was threatening it. And as hereckoned so it befell. The Deputy-Governor added his own passionatepleading to the proposals of the letter.

  But Don Miguel was of stouter heart. True, his fleet had been partlydestroyed and partly captured. But then, he argued, he had been takenutterly by surprise. That should not happen again. There should be nosurprising the fort. Let Captain Blood do his worst at Maracaybo, thereshould be a bitter reckoning for him when eventually he decided--as,sooner or later, decide he must--to come forth. The Deputy-Governor wasflung into panic. He lost his temper, and said some hard things to theAdmiral. But they were not as hard as the thing the Admiral said to himin answer.

  "Had you been as loyal to your King in hindering the entrance of thesecursed pirates as I shall be in hindering their going forth again, weshould not now find ourselves in our present straits. So weary me nomore with your coward counsels. I make no terms with Captain Blood. Iknow my duty to my King, and I intend to perform it. I also know myduty to myself. I have a private score with this rascal, and I intend tosettle it. Take you that message back."

  So back to Maracaybo, back to his own handsome house in which CaptainBlood had established his quarters, came the Deputy-Governor with theAdmiral's answer. And because he had been shamed into a show of spiritby the Admiral's own stout courage in adversity, he delivered it astruculently as the Admiral could have desired. "And is it like that?"said Captain Blood with a quiet smile, though the heart of him sankat this failure of his bluster. "Well, well, it's a pity now that theAdmiral's so headstrong. It was that way he lost his fleet, which washis own to lose. This pleasant city of Maracaybo isn't. So no doubthe'll lose it with fewer misgivings. I am sorry. Waste, like bloodshed,is a thing abhorrent to me. But there ye are! I'll have the faggots tothe place in the morning, and maybe when he sees the blaze to-morrownight he'll begin to believe that Peter Blood is a man of his word. Yemay go, Don Francisco."

  The Deputy-Governor went out with dragging feet, followed by guards, hismomentary truculence utterly spent.

  But no sooner had he departed than up leapt Cahusac, who had been of thecouncil assembled to receive the Admiral's answer. His face was whiteand his hands shook as he held them out in protest.

  "Death of my life, what have you to say now?" he cried, his voice husky.And without waiting to hear what it might be, he raved on: "I knew younot frighten the Admiral so easy. He hold us entrap', and he knows it;yet you dream that he will yield himself to your impudent message. Yourfool letter it have seal' the doom of us all."

  "Have ye done?" quoth Blood quietly, as the Frenchman paused for breath.

  "No, I have not."

  "Then spare me the rest. It'll be of the same quality, devil a doubt,and it doesn't help us to solve the riddle that's before us."

  "But what are you going to do? Is i
t that you will tell me?" It was nota question, it was a demand.

  "How the devil do I know? I was hoping you'd have some ideas yourself.But since Ye're so desperately concerned to save your skin, you andthose that think like you are welcome to leave us. I've no doubt at allthe Spanish Admiral will welcome the abatement of our numbers even atthis late date. Ye shall have the sloop as a parting gift from us, andye can join Don Miguel in the fort for all I care, or for all the goodye're likely to be to us in this present pass."

  "It is to my men to decide," Cahusac retorted, swallowing his fury, andon that stalked out to talk to them, leaving the others to deliberate inpeace.

  Next morning early he sought Captain Blood again. He found him alonein the patio, pacing to and fro, his head sunk on his breast. Cahusacmistook consideration for dejection. Each of us carries in himself astandard by which to measure his neighbour.

  "We have take' you at your word, Captain," he announced, betweensullenness and defiance. Captain Blood paused, shoulders hunched, handsbehind his back, and mildly regarded the buccaneer in silence. Cahusacexplained himself. "Last night I send one of my men to the SpanishAdmiral with a letter. I make him offer to capitulate if he will accordus passage with the honours of war. This morning I receive his answer.He accord us this on the understanding that we carry nothing away withus. My men they are embarking them on the sloop. We sail at once."

  "Bon voyage," said Captain Blood, and with a nod he turned on his heelagain to resume his interrupted mediation.

  "Is that all that you have to say to me?" cried Cahusac.

  "There are other things," said Blood over his shoulder. "But I know yewouldn't like them."

  "Ha! Then it's adieu, my Captain." Venomously he added: "It is my beliefthat we shall not meet again."

  "Your belief is my hope," said Captain Blood.

  Cahusac flung away, obscenely vituperative. Before noon he was under waywith his followers, some sixty dejected men who had allowed themselvesto be persuaded by him into that empty-handed departure--in spite evenof all that Yberville could do to prevent it. The Admiral kept faithwith him, and allowed him free passage out to sea, which, from hisknowledge of Spaniards, was more than Captain Blood had expected.

  Meanwhile, no sooner had the deserters weighed anchor than Captain Bloodreceived word that the Deputy-Governor begged to be allowed to see himagain. Admitted, Don Francisco at once displayed the fact that a night'sreflection had quickened his apprehensions for the city of Maracaybo andhis condemnation of the Admiral's intransigence.

  Captain Blood received him pleasantly.

  "Good-morning to you, Don Francisco. I have postponed the bonfire untilnightfall. It will make a better show in the dark."

  Don Francisco, a slight, nervous, elderly man of high lineage and lowvitality, came straight to business.

  "I am here to tell you, Don Pedro, that if you will hold your hand forthree days, I will undertake to raise the ransom you demand, which DonMiguel de Espinosa refuses."

  Captain Blood confronted him, a frown contracting the dark brows abovehis light eyes:

  "And where will you be raising it?" quoth he, faintly betraying hissurprise.

  Don Francisco shook his head. "That must remain my affair," he answered."I know where it is to be found, and my compatriots must contribute.Give me leave for three days on parole, and I will see you fullysatisfied. Meanwhile my son remains in your hands as a hostage for myreturn." And upon that he fell to pleading. But in this he was crisplyinterrupted.

  "By the Saints! Ye're a bold man, Don Francisco, to come to me with sucha tale--to tell me that ye know where the ransom's to be raised, and yetto refuse to say. D'ye think now that with a match between your fingersye'd grow more communicative?"

  If Don Francisco grew a shade paler, yet again he shook his head.

  "That was the way of Morgan and L'Ollonais and other pirates. But it isnot the way of Captain Blood. If I had doubted that I should not havedisclosed so much."

  The Captain laughed. "You old rogue," said he. "Ye play upon my vanity,do you?"

  "Upon your honour, Captain."

  "The honour of a pirate? Ye're surely crazed!"

  "The honour of Captain Blood," Don Francisco insisted. "You have therepute of making war like a gentleman."

  Captain Blood laughed again, on a bitter, sneering note that made DonFrancisco fear the worst. He was not to guess that it was himself theCaptain mocked.

  "That's merely because it's more remunerative in the end. And thatis why you are accorded the three days you ask for. So about it, DonFrancisco. You shall have what mules you need. I'll see to it."

  Away went Don Francisco on his errand, leaving Captain Blood to reflect,between bitterness and satisfaction, that a reputation for as muchchivalry as is consistent with piracy is not without its uses.

  Punctually on the third day the Deputy-Governor was back in Maracaybowith his mules laden with plate and money to the value demanded and aherd of a hundred head of cattle driven in by negro slaves.

  These bullocks were handed over to those of the company who ordinarilywere boucan-hunters, and therefore skilled in the curing of meats, andfor best part of a week thereafter they were busy at the waterside withthe quartering and salting of carcases.

  While this was doing on the one hand and the ships were being refittedfor sea on the other, Captain Blood was pondering the riddle on thesolution of which his own fate depended. Indian spies whom he employedbrought him word that the Spaniards, working at low tide, had salved thethirty guns of the Salvador, and thus had added yet another batteryto their already overwhelming strength. In the end, and hoping forinspiration on the spot, Captain Blood made a reconnaissance in person.At the risk of his life, accompanied by two friendly Indians, he crossedto the island in a canoe under cover of dark. They concealed themselvesand the canoe in the short thick scrub with which that side of theisland was densely covered, and lay there until daybreak. Then Bloodwent forward alone, and with infinite precaution, to make his survey. Hewent to verify a suspicion that he had formed, and approached the fortas nearly as he dared and a deal nearer than was safe.

  On all fours he crawled to the summit of an eminence a mile or so away,whence he found himself commanding a view of the interior dispositionsof the stronghold. By the aid of a telescope with which he had equippedhimself he was able to verify that, as he had suspected and hoped, thefort's artillery was all mounted on the seaward side.

  Satisfied, he returned to Maracaybo, and laid before the six whocomposed his council--Pitt, Hagthorpe, Yberville, Wolverstone, Dyke, andOgle--a proposal to storm the fort from the landward side. Crossingto the island under cover of night, they would take the Spaniards bysurprise and attempt to overpower them before they could shift theirguns to meet the onslaught.

  With the exception of Wolverstone, who was by temperament the kind ofman who favours desperate chances, those officers received the proposalcoldly. Hagthorpe incontinently opposed it.

  "It's a harebrained scheme, Peter," he said gravely, shaking hishandsome head. "Consider now that we cannot depend upon approachingunperceived to a distance whence we might storm the fort before thecannon could be moved. But even if we could, we can take no cannonourselves; we must depend entirely upon our small arms, and how shallwe, a bare three hundred" (for this was the number to which Cahusac'sdefection had reduced them), "cross the open to attack more than twicethat number under cover?"

  The others--Dyke, Ogle, Yberville, and even Pitt, whom loyalty to Bloodmay have made reluctant--loudly approved him. When they had done, "Ihave considered all," said Captain Blood. "I have weighed the risks andstudied how to lessen them. In these desperate straits...."

  He broke off abruptly. A moment he frowned, deep in thought; then hisface was suddenly alight with inspiration. Slowly he drooped his head,and sat there considering, weighing, chin on breast. Then he nodded,muttering, "Yes," and again, "Yes." He looked up, to face them."Listen," he cried. "You may be right. The risks may be too heavy.Whether or not, I ha
ve thought of a better way. That which should havebeen the real attack shall be no more than a feint. Here, then, is theplan I now propose."

  He talked swiftly and clearly, and as he talked one by one his officers'faces became alight with eagerness. When he had done, they cried as withone voice that he had saved them.

  "That is yet to be proved in action," said he.

  Since for the last twenty-four hours all had been in readiness fordeparture, there was nothing now to delay them, and it was decided tomove next morning.

  Such was Captain Blood's assurance of success that he immediately freedthe prisoners held as hostages, and even the negro slaves, who wereregarded by the others as legitimate plunder. His only precautionagainst those released prisoners was to order them into the churchand there lock them up, to await deliverance at the hands of those whoshould presently be coming into the city.

  Then, all being aboard the three ships, with the treasure safely stowedin their holds and the slaves under hatches, the buccaneers weighedanchor and stood out for the bar, each vessel towing three piraguasastern.

  The Admiral, beholding their stately advance in the full light of noon,their sails gleaming white in the glare of the sunlight, rubbed hislong, lean hands in satisfaction, and laughed through his teeth.

  "At last!" he cried. "God delivers him into my hands!" He turned to thegroup of staring officers behind him. "Sooner or later it had to be," hesaid. "Say now, gentlemen, whether I am justified of my patience. Hereend to-day the troubles caused to the subjects of the Catholic King bythis infamous Don Pedro Sangre, as he once called himself to me."

  He turned to issue orders, and the fort became lively as a hive. Theguns were manned, the gunners already kindling fuses, when the buccaneerfleet, whilst still heading for Palomas, was observed to bear away tothe west. The Spaniards watched them, intrigued.

  Within a mile and a half to westward of the fort, and within a half-mileof the shore--that is to say, on the very edge of the shoal water thatmakes Palomas unapproachable on either side by any but vessels ofthe shallowest draught--the four ships cast anchor well within theSpaniards' view, but just out of range of their heaviest cannon.

  Sneeringly the Admiral laughed.

  "Aha! They hesitate, these English dogs! Por Dios, and well they may."

  "They will be waiting for night," suggested his nephew, who stood at hiselbow quivering with excitement.

  Don Miguel looked at him, smiling. "And what shall the night avail themin this narrow passage, under the very muzzles of my guns? Be sure,Esteban, that to-night your father will be paid for."

  He raised his telescope to continue his observation of the buccaneers.He saw that the piraguas towed by each vessel were being warpedalongside, and he wondered a little what this manoeuver might portend.Awhile those piraguas were hidden from view behind the hulls. Then oneby one they reappeared, rowing round and away from the ships, and eachboat, he observed, was crowded with armed men. Thus laden, they wereheaded for the shore, at a point where it was densely wooded to thewater's edge. The eyes of the wondering Admiral followed them until thefoliage screened them from his view.

  Then he lowered his telescope and looked at his officers.

  "What the devil does it mean?" he asked.

  None answered him, all being as puzzled as he was himself.

  After a little while, Esteban, who kept his eyes on the water, pluckedat his uncle's sleeve. "There they go!" he cried, and pointed.

  And there, indeed, went the piraguas on their way back to the ships.But now it was observed that they were empty, save for the men who rowedthem. Their armed cargo had been left ashore.

  Back to the ships they pulled, to return again presently with a freshload of armed men, which similarly they conveyed to Palomas. And at lastone of the Spanish officers ventured an explanation:

  "They are going to attack us by land--to attempt to storm the fort."

  "Of course." The Admiral smiled. "I had guessed it. Whom the gods woulddestroy they first make mad."

  "Shall we make a sally?" urged Esteban, in his excitement.

  "A sally? Through that scrub? That would be to play into their hands.No, no, we will wait here to receive this attack. Whenever it comes, itis themselves will be destroyed, and utterly. Have no doubt of that."

  But by evening the Admiral's equanimity was not quite so perfect. Bythen the piraguas had made a half-dozen journeys with their loadsof men, and they had landed also--as Don Miguel had clearly observedthrough his telescope--at least a dozen guns.

  His countenance no longer smiled; it was a little wrathful and a littletroubled now as he turned again to his officers.

  "Who was the fool who told me that they number but three hundred men inall? They have put at least twice that number ashore already."

  Amazed as he was, his amazement would have been deeper had he been toldthe truth: that there was not a single buccaneer or a single gun ashoreon Palomas. The deception had been complete. Don Miguel could not guessthat the men he had beheld in those piraguas were always the same; thaton the journeys to the shore they sat and stood upright in full view;and that on the journeys back to the ships, they lay invisible at thebottom of the boats, which were thus made to appear empty.

  The growing fears of the Spanish soldiery at the prospect of a nightattack from the landward side by the entire buccaneer force--and aforce twice as strong as they had suspected the pestilent Blood tocommand--began to be communicated to the Admiral.

  In the last hours of fading daylight, the Spaniards did precisely whatCaptain Blood so confidently counted that they would do--precisely whatthey must do to meet the attack, preparations for which had been sothoroughly simulated. They set themselves to labour like the damned atthose ponderous guns emplaced to command the narrow passage out to sea.

  Groaning and sweating, urged on by the curses and even the whips oftheir officers, they toiled in a frenzy of panic-stricken haste to shiftthe greater number and the more powerful of their guns across to thelandward side, there to emplace them anew, so that they might be readyto receive the attack which at any moment now might burst upon them fromthe woods not half a mile away.

  Thus, when night fell, although in mortal anxiety of the onslaught ofthose wild devils whose reckless courage was a byword on the seas of theMain, at least the Spaniards were tolerably prepared for it. Waiting,they stood to their guns.

  And whilst they waited thus, under cover of the darkness and as the tidebegan to ebb, Captain Blood's fleet weighed anchor quietly; and, as oncebefore, with no more canvas spread than that which their sprits couldcarry, so as to give them steering way--and even these having beenpainted black--the four vessels, without a light showing, groped theirway by soundings to the channel which led to that narrow passage out tosea.

  The Elizabeth and the Infanta, leading side by side, were almost abreastof the fort before their shadowy bulks and the soft gurgle of water attheir prows were detected by the Spaniards, whose attention until thatmoment had been all on the other side. And now there arose on the nightair such a sound of human baffled fury as may have resounded about Babelat the confusion of tongues. To heighten that confusion, and to scatterdisorder among the Spanish soldiery, the Elizabeth emptied her larboardguns into the fort as she was swept past on the swift ebb.

  At once realizing--though not yet how--he had been duped, and that hisprey was in the very act of escaping after all, the Admiral franticallyordered the guns that had been so laboriously moved to be dragged backto their former emplacements, and commanded his gunners meanwhile tothe slender batteries that of all his powerful, but now unavailable,armament still remained trained upon the channel. With these, after theloss of some precious moments, the fort at last made fire.

  It was answered by a terrific broadside from the Arabella, which hadnow drawn abreast, and was crowding canvas to her yards. The enragedand gibbering Spaniards had a brief vision of her as the line of flamespurted from her red flank, and the thunder of her broadside drownedthe noise of the creaking h
alyards. After that they saw her no more.Assimilated by the friendly darkness which the lesser Spanish guns werespeculatively stabbing, the escaping ships fired never another shot thatmight assist their baffled and bewildered enemies to locate them.

  Some slight damage was sustained by Blood's fleet. But by the time theSpaniards had resolved their confusion into some order of dangerousoffence, that fleet, well served by a southerly breeze, was through thenarrows and standing out to sea.

  Thus was Don Miguel de Espinosa left to chew the bitter cud of a lostopportunity, and to consider in what terms he would acquaint theSupreme Council of the Catholic King that Peter Blood had got away fromMaracaybo, taking with him two twenty-gun frigates that were latelythe property of Spain, to say nothing of two hundred and fifty thousandpieces of eight and other plunder. And all this in spite of Don Miguel'sfour galleons and his heavily armed fort that at one time had held thepirates so securely trapped.

  Heavy, indeed, grew the account of Peter Blood, which Don Miguel sworepassionately to Heaven should at all costs to himself be paid in full.

  Nor were the losses already detailed the full total of those sufferedon this occasion by the King of Spain. For on the following evening,off the coast of Oruba, at the mouth of the Gulf of Venezuela, CaptainBlood's fleet came upon the belated Santo Nino, speeding under full sailto reenforce Don Miguel at Maracaybo.

  At first the Spaniard had conceived that she was meeting the victoriousfleet of Don Miguel, returning from the destruction of the pirates. Whenat comparatively close quarters the pennon of St. George soared to theArabella's masthead to disillusion her, the Santo Nino chose the betterpart of valour, and struck her flag.

  Captain Blood ordered her crew to take to the boats, and land themselvesat Oruba or wherever else they pleased. So considerate was he that toassist them he presented them with several of the piraguas which hestill had in tow.

  "You will find," said he to her captain, "that Don Miguel is in anextremely bad temper. Commend me to him, and say that I venture toremind him that he must blame himself for all the ills that havebefallen him. The evil has recoiled upon him which he loosed whenhe sent his brother unofficially to make a raid upon the island ofBarbados. Bid him think twice before he lets his devils loose upon anEnglish settlement again."

  With that he dismissed the Captain, who went over the side of the SantoNino, and Captain Blood proceeded to investigate the value of thisfurther prize. When her hatches were removed, a human cargo wasdisclosed in her hold.

  "Slaves," said Wolverstone, and persisted in that belief cursing Spanishdevilry until Cahusac crawled up out of the dark bowels of the ship, andstood blinking in the sunlight.

  There was more than sunlight to make the Breton pirate blink. Andthose that crawled out after him--the remnants of his crew--cursed himhorribly for the pusillanimity which had brought them into the ignominyof owing their deliverance to those whom they had deserted as lostbeyond hope.

  Their sloop had encountered and had been sunk three days ago by theSanto Nino, and Cahusac had narrowly escaped hanging merely that forsome time he might be a mock among the Brethren of the Coast.

  For many a month thereafter he was to hear in Tortuga the jeering taunt:

  "Where do you spend the gold that you brought back from Maracaybo?"