Chapter 9 The Chronicles of Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
THE GRATITUDE OF MONSIEUR DE COULEVAIN
All through the tepid night the pinnace, gently driven by the southerly breeze, ploughed steadily through a calm sea, which after moonrise became of liquid silver.
At the tiller sat Captain Blood. Beside him in the stern-sheets crouched the woman, who between silences was now whimpering, now vituperative, now apologetic. Of the gratitude which he accounted due to him he perceived no sign. But he was a tolerant, understanding man, and he did not, therefore, account himself aggrieved. Madame de Coulevain's case, however regarded, was a hard one; and she had little, after all, for which to be thankful to Fate or to Man.
Her mixed and alternating emotions did not surprise him.
He perceived quite clearly the sources of the hatred that rang in her voice whenever in the darkness she upbraided him and that glared in her pallid face when the dawn at last began to render it visible.
They were then within a couple of miles of land: a green flat coast with a single great mountain towering in the background. To larboard a tall ship was sweeping past them, steering for the bay ahead, and in her lines and rig Captain Blood read her English nationality. From her furled topsails he assumed that her master, evidently strange to these waters, was cautiously groping his way in. And this was confirmed by the seaman visible on the starboard forechains, leaning far out to take soundings. His chanting voice reached them across the sunlit waters as he told the fathoms.
Madame de Coulevain, who latterly had fallen into a drowsy stupor, roused herself to stare across at the frigate, aglow in the golden glory of the risen sun.
"No need for fear, madame. She is not Spanish."
"Fear?" She glared at him, blear-eyed from sleeplessness and weeping. She was a handsome woman, golden-headed and built on the generous lines of Hebe. Her full lips writhed into bitterness. "What have I to fear more than the fate you thrust upon me?"
"I, madame? I thrust no fate upon you. You are overtaken by the fate your own actions have invited."
Fiercely she interrupted him. "Have I invited this? That I should return to my husband?"
Captain Blood sighed in weariness. "Are we to have the argument all over again? Must I remind you that yourself you refused the only alternative, which was to remain at the mercy of those Spanish gallants on that Spanish ship? For the rest, your husband shall be left to suppose that you were carried off against your will."
"It if had not been for you, you assassin..."
"If it had not been for me, madame, your fate would have been even worse than you tell me that it is going to be."
"Nothing could be worse! Nothing! This man who has brought me out to these savage lands because, discredited and debt-ridden as he is, there was no longer a place for him at home, is...Oh, but why do I talk to you? Why do I try to explain to one who obstinately refuses to understand, to one who desires only to blame?"
"Madame, I do not desire to blame. I desire that you should blame yourself, for the horror you brought upon Basseterre. If you will accept whatever comes as an expiation, you may find some peace of mind."
"Peace of mind! Peace of mind!" Her scorn was fulminating.
He became sententious. "Expiation cleanses conscience. And when that has happened calm will return to your spirit."
"You preach to me! You! A filibuster, a sea-robber! And you preach of things you do not understand. I owe no expiation. I have done no wrong. I was a desperate woman, hard-driven by a man who is a beast, a cruel drunken beast, a broken gamester without honour; not even honest. I took my only chance to save my soul. Was I to know that Don Juan was what you say he is? Do I know it even now?"
"Do you not?" he asked her. "Did you see the ruin and desolation wantonly wrought in Basseterre, the horrors that he loosed his men to perpetrate, and do you still doubt his nature? And can you contemplate that havoc wrought so as to give you to your lover's arms, and still protest that you did no wrong? That, madame, is the offence that calls for expiation; not anything that may lie between yourself and your husband, or yourself and Don Juan."
Her mind refused admission to a conviction which it dared not harbour. Therefore she ranted on. Blood ceased to listen. He gave his attention to the sail; hauled it a little closer, so that the craft heeled over and headed straight for the bay.
It was an hour later when they brought up at the mole. A longboat was alongside, manned by English sailors from the frigate which in the meantime had come to anchor in the roadstead.
Odd groups of men and women, white and black, idling, cowed, at the waterside, with the horror of yesterday's events still heavy upon them, stared round-eyed at Madame de Coulevain as she was handed from the boat by her stalwart, grim-faced escort, in his crumpled coat of silver-laced grey camlett and black periwig that was rather out of curl.
The little mob moved forward in wonder, slowly at first, then with quickening steps, to crowd about the unsuspected author of their woes with questions of welcome and thanksgiving for this miracle of her return, of her deliverance, as they accounted it.
Blood waited, grim and silent, his eyes upon the sparse town which showed yesterday's ugly wounds as yet unscarred. Houses displayed shattered doors and broken windows, whilst here and there a heap of ashes smouldered where a house had stood. Pieces of broken furniture lay about in the open. From the belfry of the little church standing amid the acacias in the open square came the mournful note of a passing-bell. Within the walled enclosure about it there was an ominous activity, and negroes could be seen at work there with pick and shovel.
Captain Blood's cold blue eyes played swiftly over all this and more. Then, almost roughly, he extricated the lady from that little mob of stricken questioning sympathisers who little guessed to what extent she was the author of their woes. At once conducted and conducting, he made his way up the gently rising ground. They passed a party of British sailors filling water-casks at a fountain which had been contrived by the damming of a brook. They passed the church with its busy graveyard. They passed a company of militia at drill; men in blue coats with red facings who had been hurriedly brought over by Colonel de Coulevain from Les Carmes after the harm was done.
Delayed on the way by others whom they met and who must stop to cry out in wonder at sight of Madame de Coulevain, accompanied by this tall, stern stranger, they came at last by a wide gateway into a luxuriant garden, and by an avenue of palms to a long, low house of stone and timber.
There were no signs of damage here. The Spaniards who had yesterday invaded the place, if, indeed, they had invaded it, had wrought no other mischief than to carry off the Governor's lady. The elderly negro who admitted them broke into shrill cries upon beholding his dishevelled mistress in her crumpled gown of flowered silk. He laughed and wept at once. He uttered scraps of prayer. He capered like a dog. He caught her hand and slobbered kisses on it.
"You appear to be loved, madame," said Captain Blood when at last they stood alone in the long dining-room.
"Of course that must surprise you," she sneered, with that twist of her full lips which he had come to know.
The door of a connecting-room was abruptly flung open, and a tall, heavily-built man with prominent features and sallow, deeply-lined cheeks stood at gaze. His militia coat, of blue with red facings, was stiff with tarnished gold lace. His dark bloodshot eyes opened wide at sight of her. He turned pale under his tan.
"Antoinette!" he ejaculated. He came forward unsteadily and took her by the shoulders. "Is it really you? They told me...But where have you been since yesterday?"
"Where they told you I was, no doubt." There was little in her tone besides weariness. "Fortunately, or unfortunately, this gentleman delivered me, and he has brought me safely back."
"Fortunately or unfortunately?" he echoed, and scowled. His lip curled. The dislike of her in his eyes was not to be mistaken. He took his hands from her shoulders, and half turned to consider her companion. "This gentleman?" Then his glance darkened further. "A Spaniard?"
Captain Blood met the frown with a smile. "A Dutchman, sir," he lied. But the rest of his tale was true. "By great good fortune I was aboard that Spanish ship, the Estremadura. I had been picked up by her at sea a few days before. I had access to the great cabin in which the Spanish commander had locked himself with Madame your wife. I interrupted his amorous intentions. In fact, I killed him with my hands." And he added a brief account of how, thereafter, he had conveyed her from the galleon.
Monsieur de Coulevain swore profoundly to express his wonder; stood silently pondering the thing he had been told; then swore again. Blood accounted him a dull, brutish fellow whom any woman would be justified in leaving. If the Colonel felt any tenderness towards his wife, or thankfulness for her delivery from the dreadful fate to which he must suppose her to have been exposed, he kept the emotions to himself. He showed presently, however, that he could be emotional enough over the memory of yesterday's catastrophe. This Blood accounted reasonable until he came to perceive that the man's real concern was less with the sufferings of the people of Basseterre than with the possible consequences to himself when an account of his stewardship should come to be asked of him by the French Government.
Madame, her beauty sadly impaired by her pallor, her weariness and dishevelled condition, interrupted his lament, to recall him to the demands of common courtesy.
"You have not yet thanked this gentleman for the heroic service he has rendered us."
Blood caught the sneer and perceived its double edge. At last he found it in his heart to pity her a little, to understand the despair which had driven her, reckless of what might betide others, so that she should escape from this boorish egotist.
Belatedly and clumsily M. de Coulevain expressed his thanks. When that was done, Madame took her leave of them. She confessed herself exhausted, and it was the old negro, who had remained in attendance in the background, who came forward to proffer his arm and to assist her. On the threshold a negro woman waited, all tenderness and solicitude, to put her weary mistress to bed.
Coulevain, heavy-eyed, watched her depart, and remained staring until Captain Blood's brisk voice aroused him.
"If you were to offer me some breakfast, sir, that would be a practical measure of repayment."
Coulevain swore. "Death of my life! How negligent I am! These troubles, sir...the ruin of the town...the abduction of my wife...It is too much, sir. You'll understand. It discomposes a man. You forgive me, Monsieur...I have not the honour to know your name."
"Vandermeer. Peter Vandermeer, at your service."
And then another voice cut in, a voice that spoke French with a rasping English accent. "Are you quite sure that that is your name?"
Blood span round. On the threshold of the adjacent room from which Colonel de Coulevain had earlier issued stood now the stocky figure of a youngish man in a red coat that was laced with silver. In the plump, florid countenance Captain Blood recognized at a glance his old acquaintance Captain Macartney, who had been second in command at Antigua when some months before Captain Blood had slipped through the fingers of the British there. His momentary surprise at finding Macartney here was dispelled by remembrance of the English frigate which had passed him as they were approaching Basseterre.
The officer was smiling hatefully. "Good morning, Captain Blood. This time you have no buccaneers at your heels, no ships, no demi-cannons with which to intimidate us."
So ominous was the tone, so clear its hint of the speaker's intention, that Blood's hand flew instinctively to his left side. The Englishman's smile became a laugh.
"Not even a sword, Captain Blood."
"Its absence will no doubt encourage your impertinences."
But now the Colonel was intervening. "Captain Blood, did you say? Captain Blood? Not the filibuster? Not...?"
"The filibuster indeed; the buccaneer, the transported rebel, the escaped convict on whose head the British Government has placed the price of a thousand pounds."
"A thousand pounds!" Coulevain sucked his breath. His dark, blood-injected eyes returned to the contemplation of his wife's preserver. "Sir, sir! Is this true, sir?"
Blood shrugged. "Of course it's true. Who else do you suppose could have done what I have told you that I did last night?"
Coulevain continued to stare at him with increasing wonder. "And you contrived to pass yourself off as a Dutchman on a Spanish ship?"
"Who else but Captain Blood could have done that?"
"My God!" said Coulevain.
"I hope, none the less, you'll give me some breakfast, my Colonel?"
"Aboard the Royal Duchess," said Macartney, evilly facetious, "you shall have all the breakfast you require."
"Much obliged. But I have a prior claim on the hospitality of Colonel de Coulevain, for services rendered to his wife."
Major Macartney—he had been promoted since Blood's last meeting with him—smiled. "My claim can wait, then, until your fast is broken."
"What claim is that?" quoth Coulevain.
"To do my duty by arresting this damned pirate, and delivering him to the hangman."
M. de Coulevain seemed shocked. "Arrest him? You want to laugh, I think. This, sir, is France. Your warrant does not run on French soil."
"Perhaps not. But there is an agreement between France and England for the prompt exchange of any prisoners who may have escaped from a penal settlement. Under that agreement, sir, you dare not refuse to surrender Captain Blood to me."
"Surrender him to you? My guest? The man who has served me so nobly? Who is here as a direct consequence of that service? Sir, it...it is unthinkable." Thus he displayed to Captain Blood certain remains of decent feeling.
Macartney was gravely calm. "I perceive your scruples. I respect them. But duty is duty."
"I care nothing for your duty, sir."
The Major's manner became more stern. "Colonel de Coulevain, you will forgive me for pointing out to you that I have the means at hand to enforce my demand, and my duty will compel me to employ it."
"What?" Colonel de Coulevain was aghast. "You would land your men under arms on French soil?"
"If you are obstinate in your misplaced chivalry you will leave me no choice."
"But...God of my life! That would be an act of war. War between the nations would be the probable result."
Macartney shook his round head. "The certain result would be the cashiering of Colonel de Coulevain for having made the act necessary in defiance of the existing agreement." He smiled maliciously. "I think you will be sufficiently under a cloud already, my Colonel, for yesterday's events here."
Coulevain sat down heavily, dragged forth a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He was perspiring freely. He appealed in his distress to Captain Blood. "Death of my life! What am I to do?"
"I am afraid," said Captain Blood, "that his reasoning is faultless." He stifled a yawn. "You'll forgive me. I was out in the open all night." And he, too, sat down. "Do not permit yourself to be distressed, my Colonel. This business of playing Providence is seldom properly requited by Fortune."
"But what am I to do, sir? What am I to do?"
Under his sleepy exterior, Captain Blood's wits were wide-awake and busy. It was within his experience of these officers sent overseas that they belonged almost without exception to one of two classes: they were either men who, like Coulevain, had dissipated their fortunes, or else younger sons with no fortunes to dissipate. Now, as he afterwards expressed it, he heaved the lead so as to sound the depth of Macartney's disinterestedness and honesty of purpose.
"You will give me up, of course, my Colonel. And the British Government will pay you the reward of a thousand pounds—five thousand pieces of eight."
Each officer made a sharp movement at that, and from each came an almost inarticulate ejaculation of inquiry.
Captain Blood explained himself. "It is so provided by the agreement under which Major Macartney claims my surrender. Any reward for the apprehension of an escaped prisoner is payable to the person surrendering him to the authorities. Here, on French soil, it will be you, my Colonel, who will surrender me. Major Macartney is merely the representative of the authorities—the British Government—to whom I am surrendered."
The Englishman's face lost some of its high colour; it lengthened; his mouth drooped; his very breathing quickened. Blood had heaved the lead to some purpose. It had given him the exact depth of Macartney, who stood now tongue-tied and crestfallen, forbidden by decency from making the least protest against the suddenly vanished prospect of a thousand pounds which he had been reckoning as good as in his pocket.
But this was not the only phenomenon produced by Blood's disclosure of the exact situation. Colonel de Coulevain, too, was oddly stricken. The sudden prospect of so easily acquiring this magnificent sum seemed to have affected him as oddly as the contrary had affected Macartney. This was an unexpected complication to the observant Captain Blood. But it led him at once to remember that Madame de Coulevain had described her husband as a broken gamester harassed by creditors. He wondered what would be the ultimate clash of the evil forces he was releasing, and almost ventured to hope that in that, when it came, as once before in a similar situation, would lie his opportunity.
"There is no more to be said, my Colonel," he drawled. "Circumstances have been too much for me. I know when I've lost, and I must pay." He yawned again. "Meanwhile, if I might have a little food and rest, I should be grateful. Perhaps Major Macartney will give me leave until this evening, when he can come to fetch me with an escort."
Macartney swung aside, and paced towards the open windows. The elation, the masterfulness, had completely left him. He dragged his feet. His shoulders drooped. "Very well," he said sourly, and checked his aimless wandering to turn towards the door. "I'll return for you at six o'clock."
But on the threshold he paused..."You'll play me no tricks, Captain Blood?"
"Tricks? What tricks can I play?" The Captain smiled wistfully. "I have no buccaneers, no ship, no demi-cannon. Not even a sword, as you remarked, Major. For the only trick I might yet play you..." He broke off, and changed his tone to add more briskly: "Major Macartney, since there's no thousand pounds to be earned by you for taking me, should you not be a fool to refuse a thousand pounds for leaving me? For forgetting that you have seen me?"
Macartney flushed. "What the devil do you mean?"
"Now don't be getting hot, Major. Think it over until this evening. A thousand pounds is a deal of money. You don't earn it every day, or every year, in the service of King James; and you perceive quite clearly by now that you won't earn it by arresting me."
Macartney bit his lip, looking searchingly meanwhile at the Colonel. "It...it's unthinkable!" he exploded. "I am not to be bribed. Unthinkable! If it were known..."
Captain Blood chuckled. "Is that what's troubling you? But who's to tell? Colonel de Coulevain owes me silence at least."
The brooding Colonel roused himself. "Oh, at least, at least. Have no doubt of that, sir."
Macartney looked from one to the other of them, a man plainly in the grip of temptation. He swore in his throat. "I'll return at six," he announced shortly.
"With an escort, Major, or alone?" was Blood's sly question.
"That's...that's as may be."
He strode out, and they heard his angrily-planted feet go clattering across the hall. Captain Blood winked at the Colonel, and rose. "I'll wager you a thousand pounds that there will be no escort."
"I cannot take the wager since I am of the same opinion."
"Now that's a pity, for I shall require the money, and I don't know how else to obtain it. It is possible he may consent to accept my note of hand."
"No need to distress yourself on that score."
Captain Blood searched the Colonel's heavy, blood-hound countenance. It wore a smile, a smile intended to be friendly. But somehow Captain Blood did not like the face any better on that account.
The smile broadened to an increasing friendliness. "You may break your fast and take your rest with an easy mind, sir. I will deal with Major Macartney when he returns."
"You will deal with him? Do you mean that you will advance the money?"
"I owe you no less, my dear Captain."
Again Captain Blood gave him a long searching stare before he bowed and spoke his eloquent thanks. The proposal was amazing. So amazing coming from a broken gamester harassed by creditors, that it was not to be believed—at least not by a man of Captain Blood's experience.
When, having broken his fast, he repaired to the curtained bed which Abraham had prepared for him in a fair room above stairs, he lay despite his weariness for some time considering it all. He recalled the subtle sudden betraying change in Coulevain's manner when it was disclosed that the reward would go to him; he saw again the oily smile on the Colonel's face when he had announced that he would deal with Major Macartney. If he knew men at all, Coulevain was the last whom he would trust. Of himself he was aware that he was an extremely negotiable security. The British Government had set a definite price upon his head. But it was widely known that the Spaniards whom he had harassed and pillaged without mercy would pay three or four times that price for him alive, so that they might have the pleasure of roasting him in the fires of the Faith. Had this scoundrel Coulevain suddenly perceived that the advent in Mariegalante of this saviour of his wife's honour was something in the nature of a windfall with which to repair his battered fortunes? If the half of what Madame de Coulevain had said of her husband in the course of that night's sailing was true there was no reason to suppose that any nice scruples would restrain him.
The more he considered, the more the Captain's uneasiness increased. He began to perceive that he was in an extremely tight corner. He even went so far as to ask himself if the most prudent course might not be to rise, weary as he was, slip down to the mole, get aboard the pinnace which already had served him so well, and trust himself in her to the mercies of the ocean. But whither steer a course in that frail cockleshell? Only the neighbouring islands were possible, and they were all either French or British. On British soil he was certain of arrest with the gallows to follow, whilst on French soil he could hardly expect to fare better, considering his experience here where the commander was so deeply in his debt. If only he had money with which to purchase a passage on some ship that might pick him up at sea, money enough to induce a shipmaster to ask no questions whilst landing him off Tortuga. But he had none. The only thing of value in his possession was the great pearl in his left ear, worth perhaps five hundred pieces.
He was disposed to curse that raid in canoes upon the pearl fisheries of Cariaco which had resulted in disaster, had separated him from his ship, and had left him since adrift. But since cursing past events was the least profitable method of averting future ones, he decided to take the sleep of which he stood in need, hoping for the counsel which sleep is said to bring.
He timed himself to awaken at six o'clock, the hour at which Major Macartney was to return, and, his well-trained senses responding to that command, he awakened punctually. The angle of the sun was his sufficient dock. He slipped from the bed, found his shoes, which Abraham had cleaned, his coat, which had been brushed, and his periwig, which had been combed by the good negro. He had scarcely donned them when through the open window floated up to him the sound of a voice. It was the voice of Macartney, and it was answered instantly by the Colonel's with a hearty: "Come you in, sir. Come in."
In the nick of time, thought Blood; and he accepted the circumstances as a good omen. Cautiously he made his way below, meeting no one on the stairs or in the hall. Outside the door of the dining-room he stood listening. A hum of voices reached him. But they were distant. They came from the room beyond. Noiselessly he opened the door and slid across the threshold. The place was empty, as he had expected. The door of the adjacent room stood ajar. Through this came now the Major's laugh, and upon the heels of it the Colonel's voice.
"Depend upon it. He is under my hand. Spain, as you've said, will pay three times this sum, or even more, for him. Therefore he should be glad to ransom himself for, say, five times the amount of this advance." He chuckled, adding: "I have the advantage of you, Major, in that I can hold him to ransom, which your position as a British officer makes impossible to you. All things considered, you are fortunate, yes, and wise, to earn a thousand pounds for yourself."
"My God!" said Macartney, rendered suddenly virtuous by envy. "And that's how you pay your debts and reward the man for preserving your wife's life and honour! Faith, I'm glad I'm not your creditor."
"Shall we abstain from comments?" the Colonel suggested sourly.
"Oh, by all means. Give me the money, and I'll go my ways."
There was a chinking squelch twice repeated, as of moneybags that are raised and set down again. "It is in rolls of twenty double moidores. Will you count them?"
There followed a mumbling pause, and at the end of it came the Colonel's voice again. "If you will sign this quittance, the matter is at an end."
"Quittance?"
"I'll read it to you." And the Colonel read: "I acknowledge, and give Colonel Jerome de Coulevain this quittance for the sum of five thousand pieces of eight, received from him in consideration of my forbearing from any action against Captain Blood, and of my undertaking no action whatever hereafter for as long as he may remain the guest of Colonel de Coulevain on the Island of Mariegalante or elsewhere. Given under my hand and seal this tenth day of July of 1688."
As the Colonel's voice trailed off there came an explosion from Macartney.
"God's death, Colonel! Are you mad, or do you think that I am?"
"What do you find amiss? Is it not a correct statement?"
Macartney banged the table in his vehemence. "It puts a rope round my neck."
"Only if you play me false. What other guarantee have I that when you've taken these five thousand pieces you will keep faith with me?"
"You have my word," said Macartney in a passion. "And my word must content you."
"Your word! Your word!" The Frenchman's sneer was unmistakable. "Ah, that, no. Your word is not enough."
"You want to insult me!"
"Pish! Let us be practical, Major. Ask yourself: Would you accept the word of a man in a transaction in which his own part is dishonest?"
"Dishonest, sir? What the devil do you mean?"
"Are you not accepting a bribe to be false to your duty? Is not that dishonesty?"
"By god! This comes well from you, considering your intentions."
"You make it necessary. Besides, have I played the hypocrite as to my part? I have been unnecessarily frank, even to appearing a rogue. But, as in your own case, Major, necessity knows no law with me."
A pause followed upon those conciliatory words. Then: "Nevertheless," said Macartney, "I do not sign that paper."
"You'll sign and seal it, or I do not pay the money. What do you fear, Major? I give you my word—"
"Your word! Hell and the devil! In what is your word better than mine?"
"The circumstances make it better. On my side there can be no temptation to break faith, as on yours. It cannot profit me."
It was clear by now to Blood that since Macartney had not struck the Frenchman for his insults, he would end by signing. Only a desperate need of money could so have curbed the Englishman. He therefore heard with surprise Macartney's angry outburst.
"Give me the pen. Let us have done."
Another pause followed, then the Colonel's voice: "And now seal it here, where I have set the wax. The signet on your finger will serve."
Captain Blood waited for no more. The long windows stood open to the garden over which the dusk was rapidly descending. He stepped noiselessly out and vanished amid the shrubs. About the stem of a tall silk-cotton tree he found a tough slender liana swarming like a snake. He brought out his knife, slashed it near the root, and drew it down.
As Captain Macartney, softly humming to himself, a heavy leathern bag in the crook of each arm, came presently down the avenue between the palms where the evening shadows were deepest, he tripped over what he conceived to be a rope stretched taut across the path, and spread-eagled forward with a crash.
Lying momentarily half-stunned by the heavy fall, a weight descended on his back, and in his ear a pleasant voice was murmuring in English, with a strong Irish accent: "I have no buccaneers, Major, no ship, no demi-cannon, and, as you remarked, not even a sword. But I still have my hands and my wits, and they should more than suffice to deal with a paltry rogue like you."
"By God!" swore Macartney, though half-choked. "You shall hang for this, Captain Blood! By God, you shall!" Frenziedly he struggled to elude the grip of his assailant. His sword being useless in his present position, he sought to reach the pocket in which he carried a pistol, but, by the movement, merely betrayed its presence. Captain Blood possessed himself of it.
"Will you be quiet now?" he asked. "Or must I be blowing out your brains?"
"You dirty Judas! You thieving pirate! Is this how you keep faith?"
"I pledged you no faith, you nasty rogue. Your bargain was with the French colonel, not with me. It was he who bribed you to be false to your duty. I had no part in it."
"Had you not? You lying dog! You're a pretty pair of scoundrels, on my soul! Working in con-conjunction."
"Now that," said Blood, "is needlessly and foolishly offensive."
Macartney broke into fresh expletives.
"You talk too much," said Captain Blood, and tapped him twice over the head with the butt of the pistol, using great science. The Major sank forward gently, like a man asleep.
Captain Blood rose, and peered about him through the dusk. All was still. He went to pick up the leather bags which Macartney had dropped as he fell. He made a sling for them with his scarf, and so hung them from his neck. Then he raised the unconscious Major, swung him skilfully to his shoulder, and, thus burdened, went staggering down the avenue and out into the open.
The night was hot and Macartney was heavy. The sweat ran from Blood's pores. But he went steadily ahead until he reached the low wall of the churchyard, just as the moon was beginning to rise. On to the summit of this wall he eased himself of his burden, toppled it over into the churchyard, and then climbed after it. What he had to do there was quickly done by the light of the moon under the shelter of that wall. With the man's own sash he trussed him up at wrists and ankles. Then he stuffed some of the Major's periwig into his mouth, using the fellow's neckcloth to hold this unpleasant gag in position and taking care to leave his nostrils free.
As he was concluding the operation, Macartney opened his eyes and glared at him.
"Sure now it's only me: your old friend, Captain Blood. I'm just after making you comfortable for the night. When they find you in the morning, ye can tell them any convenient lie that will save you the trouble of explaining what can't be explained at all. It's a very good night I'll be wishing you, Major darling."
He went over the wall and briskly down the road that led to the sea.
On the mole lounged the British sailors who manned the longboat from the Royal Duchess, awaiting the Major's return. Further on, some men of Mariegalante were landing their haul from a fishing-boat that had just come in. None gave heed to Blood as he stepped along to the mole's end where that morning he had moored the pinnace. In the locker, where he stowed the heavy bags of gold, there was still some of the food that he had brought away last night from the Estremadura. He could not take the risk of adding to it. But he filled the two small water-casks at the fountain.
Then he stepped aboard, cast off and got out the sweeps. Another night on the open sea lay ahead of him. The wind, however, was still in the same quarter as last night and would favour the run to Guadeloupe upon which he had determined.
Once out of the bay he hoisted sail, and ran northward along the coast and the shallow cliffs which cast an inky shadow against the moon's white radiance. On he crawled through a sea of rippling quicksilver until he reached the island's end; then he headed straight across the ten miles of intervening water.
Off Grand Terre, the eastern of the two main islands of Guadeloupe, he lay awaiting sunrise. When it came, bringing a freshening of the wind, he ran close past Saint Anne, which was empty of shipping, and, hugging the coast, sailed on in a north-easterly direction until he came, some two hours later, to Port du Moule.
There were half a dozen ships in the harbour, and Blood scanned them with anxiety until his glance alighted on a black brigantine that was bellied like a Flemish alderman. Those lines were a sufficient advertisement of her Dutch origin, and Captain Blood, sweeping alongside, hailed her with confidence and climbed to her deck.
"I am in haste," he informed her sturdy captain, "to reach the northern coast of French Hispaniola, and I will pay you well for a passage thither."
The Dutchman eyed him without favour. "If you're in haste you had better seek what you need elsewhere. I am for Curacao."
"I've said I'll pay you well. Five thousand pieces of eight should compensate you for delays."
"Five thousand pieces!" The Dutchman stared. The sum was as much as he could hope to earn by his present voyage. "Who are you, sir?"
"What's that to the matter? I am one who will pay five thousand pieces."
The skipper of the brigantine screwed up his little blue eyes. "Will you pay in advance?"
"The half of it. The other half I shall obtain when my destination is reached. But you may hold me aboard until you have the money." Thus he ensured that the Dutchman, ignorant of the fact that the entire sum was already under his hand, should keep faith.
"I could sail to-night," said the other slowly.
Blood at once produced one of the two bags. The other he had stowed in one of the water-casks in the locker of the pinnace, and there it remained unsuspected until four days later, when they were in the narrow seas between Hispaniola and Tortuga.
Then Captain Blood, announcing that he would put himself ashore, paid over the balance of the money, and climbed down the side of the brig to re-enter the pinnace. When, presently, the Dutchman observed him to be steering not, indeed, towards Hispaniola, but a northerly course in the direction of Tortuga, that stronghold of the buccaneers, his growing suspicions may have been fully confirmed. He remained, however, untroubled, the only man who, in addition to Blood himself, had really profited by that transaction on the Island of Mariegalante.
Thus Captain Blood came back at last to Tortuga and to the fleet that was by now mourning him as dead. With that fleet of five tall ships he sailed into the harbour of Basseterre a month later with intent to settle a debt which he conceived to lie between Colonel de Coulevain and himself.
His appearance there in such force fluttered both the garrison and the inhabitants. But he came too late for his purposes. Colonel de Coulevain was no longer there to be fluttered. He had been sent back to France under arrest.
Captain Blood was informed of this by Colonel Sancerre, who had succeeded to the military command of Mariegalante, and who received him with the courtesy due to a filibuster who comes backed by the powerful fleet that Blood had anchored in the roadstead.
Captain Blood fetched a sigh when he heard the news. "A pity! I had a little word to say to him; a little debt to settle."
"A little debt of five thousand pieces of eight, I think," said the Frenchman.
"On my faith, you are well informed."
The Colonel explained. "When the General of the Armies of France in America came here to inquire into the matter of the Spanish raid on Mariegalante, he discovered that Colonel de Coulevain had robbed the French Colonial Treasury of that sum. There was proof of it in a quittance that was found among M. de Coulevain's papers."
"So that's where he got the money!"
"I see that you understand." The Commandant looked grave. "Robbery is a serious, shameful matter, Captain Blood."
"I know it is. I've practised a good deal of it myself."
"And I've little doubt that they will hang M. de Coulevain, poor devil."
Captain Blood nodded. "No doubt of that. But we'll save our tears to water some nobler grave, my Colonel."
Colonel Sancerre eyed him with cold disapproval. "This hardly comes well from you, Captain Blood. It was to save you from the English that Colonel de Coulevain paid over the money, was it not?"
"Hardly to save me from them. To buy me from them so that he might sell me again to Spain at a handsome profit. He had an eye to a profit, your Colonel de Coulevain."
"But what do you tell me?" cried Sancerre.
"That it's entirely a poetic thing that the quittance he took on my behalf should be the means of hanging him."