Chapter 6 The Deliverance — The Fortunes of Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
In the hall of the Deputy-Governor's house, when they came to it, Captain Blood left the lad to wait for him, whilst, guided by my lady's strident scolding voice, he strode to the dining-room. There he found Sir James seated, cold and sneering, before a neglected breakfast and her ladyship pacing the room as she railed. The opening of the door momentarily checked her. Then with heaving breast and eyes that flamed in a white face she exploded at the intruder.
'You have the effrontery to present yourself?'
'I thought that I might be expected.'
'Expected? Ha!'
He bowed a little. 'I'm far from wishing to intrude. But I supposed that some explanation might be desired of me.'
'Some explanation indeed!'
'And it's not in my sensitive heart to disappoint a lady.'
'A while ago you had another name for me.'
'A while ago you deserved another.'
Sir James rapped the table. His dignity both as Deputy-Governor and as husband demanded, he conceived, this intervention. 'Sir!' His tone was a reproof. Peremptorily he added: 'A plain tale, if you please.'
'Faith, I'll make it plainer than may please you, Sir James. I'll not be mincing words at all.' And forth came a scrupulous account of the events, in the course of rendering which he was more than once compelled to overbear her ladyship's interruptions.
At the end her husband looked at her where she stood fuming, and there was no sympathy in his glance. It was cold and hard and laden with dislike. 'Captain Peter supplies what the tale lacked to make it hang together.'
'It should suffice at least to show you that satisfaction is required, unless you're a poltroon.'
Whilst the Deputy-Governor was wincing at the insult, Captain Blood was making haste to interpose.
'Sir James, I am at your service for satisfaction of whatever sort you choose. But first, for my own satisfaction, let me say that if under the spur of emotions which I trust you will account humane, I have done aught that is offensive, my apologies are freely offered.'
Sir James remained singularly cold and stern. 'You have done little good, and perhaps a deal of harm, by your intervention. This wretched slave, encouraged to mutiny by your action, cannot be suffered to escape the consequences. There would be an end to order and discipline in the plantation if his conduct were overlooked. You perceive that?'
'Does it matter what he perceives?' railed the lady
'What I perceive is that if I had not intervened this man would have been shot on the spot by her ladyship's orders, and this because innocent of all offence he resisted the threat--again by her ladyship's orders--of having the flesh cut from his bones. Those were her gentle words.'
'It is certainly what will happen to him now,' she spitefully announced. 'That is, unless Sir James prefers to hang him.'
'As a scapegoat for me, because I intervened?' demanded the Captain of Sir James, and Sir James, stung by the sneer, made haste to answer: 'No, no. For threatening the overseer.'
This brought down upon him a fresh attack from her ladyship.
'His insolence to me, of course, is of no account. Nor, it seems, is this gentleman's.'
Between the two of them, Sir James was in danger of losing his stern habitual calm. He slapped the table so that the dishes rattled.
'One thing at a time, madam, if you please. The situation is nasty enough, God knows. I've warned you more than once against venting your spleen upon this fellow Hagthorpe. Now you force me to choose between flogging him for an insubordination that I cannot regard as other than fully provoked, and imperilling all discipline among the slaves. Since I cannot afford that, I have to thank your tantrums, madam, for compelling me to be inhuman.'
'Whilst I have none but myself to thank for having mated with a fool.'
'That, madam, is a matter we may presently have occasion to argue,' said he, and there was something so mysteriously minatory in his tone that her astonishment deprived her pertness of an answer.
Softly Blood's voice cut into the pause. 'I might be able, Sir James, to lift you from the horns of this dilemma.' And he went on to explain himself. 'You'll remember that it was to buy a cabin-boy I landed here. I had thought of a negro; but this Hagthorpe seems a likely lad. Sell him to me, and I'll take him off your hands.'
The elderly man considered a moment, and his gloom was seen to lighten a little. 'Egad! It's a solution.'
'You have but to name your price, then, Sir James.'
But her ladyship was there with her spite to close that easy exit.
'What next? The man's a rebel-convict, doomed for life to service in the plantations. You have a clear duty. You dare not be a party to his leaving the West Indies.'
In the troubled hesitation of that irresolute man, Blood saw that all was not yet done, as he had hoped. Cursing the spite of the lovely termagant, he advanced to the foot of the table, and, folding his arms on the tall back of the chair that stood there, he looked grimly from one to other of them.
'Well, well!' said he. 'And so this unfortunate lad is to be flogged.'
'He's to be hanged,' her ladyship corrected.
'No, no,' Sir James protested. 'A flogging will suffice.'
'I see that I can do no more,' said Blood, and his manner became ironically smooth. 'So I'll take my leave. But before I go, Sir James, there's something I'd almost forgot. I found a cousin of yours at St Thomas who was in haste to get to Nevis.'
He intended to surprise them; and he succeeded; but their surprise was no greater than his own at the abrupt and utter change of manner his announcement produced in her ladyship.
'Geoffrey!' she cried, a catch in her voice. 'Do you mean Geoffrey Court?'
'That is his name. Geoffrey Court.'
'And he's at St Thomas, you say?' Again it was her ladyship who questioned him, the change in her manner growing more ludicrously marked. There was a change too in the aspect of Sir James. He was observing his wife from under his bushy eyebrows, the ghost of a sneer on his thin lips.
'No, no,' Blood corrected. 'Mr Court is here. Aboard my ship. I gave him passage from St Thomas.'
'Then. . .' She paused. She was out of breath, and her brows were knit in a puzzled frown. 'Then why has he not landed?'
'I'm disposed to think it's by a dispensation of Providence. Just as it was by a dispensation of Providence that he requested a passage of me. All that need matter to you, Sir James, is that he's still aboard.'
'But is he ill, then?' cried my lady
'As healthy as a fish, ma'am. But he may not so continue. Aboard that ship, Sir James, I am as absolute as you are here ashore.'
It was impossible to misunderstand him. Taken aback, they stared at him a moment, then her ladyship, panting and quavering, exploded.
'There are laws to restrain you, I suppose.'
'No laws at all, ma'am. You have only half my name. I am Captain Peter, yes. Captain Peter Blood.' It had become necessary to disclose himself if his threat was to carry weight. He smiled upon their silent stupefaction. 'Perhaps you'll be seeing the need, for the sake of Cousin Geoffrey, of being more humane in the matter of this unfortunate slave. For I give you my word that whatever you do to young Hagthorpe that same will I do to Mr Geoffrey Court.'
Sir James actually and incomprehensibly laughed, whilst her ladyship gaped in terror for a moment before bracing herself to deal practically with the situation.
'Before you can do anything you'll have to reach your ship again, and you'll never leave Charlestown until Mr Court is safely ashore. You'd forgot to. . .'
'Och, I've forgotten nothing,' he interrupted, with a wave of the hand. 'You're not to suppose that I'm the man to walk into a gin without taking precautions to see that it can't be sprung on me. The Mary of Modena carries forty guns in her flanks, all of them demi-cannons. Two of her broadsides will make of Charlestown just a heap of rubble. And it's what'll happen if they have no word of me aboard before eight bells is made. You'll come away from that bell-pull, my lady, if you're prudent.'
She came away white and trembling, whilst Sir James, grey-faced, but still with that suggestion of a sneering smile about his lips, looked up at Captain Blood.
'You play the highwayman, sir. You put a pistol to our heads.'
'No pistol at all. Just forty demi-cannons, and every one of them loaded.'
But for all his bravado Captain Blood fully realized that in the pass to which things were come he might yet have to pistol Sir James so as to win free. He would deplore the necessity; but he was prepared for it. What he was not prepared for was the Deputy-Governor's abrupt and easy acquiescence.
'That simplifies the issue, which is, I think, that whatever I do to Hagthorpe you will do to my cousin.'
'That is the issue exactly.'
'Then if I were to hang Hagthorpe. . .'
'There would be a yard-arm for your cousin.'
'Only one decision, of course, is possible.'
Her ladyship's gasp of relief from her mounting fears was clearly audible. 'You prevail, sir,' she cried. 'We must let Hagthorpe go.'
'On the contrary,' said Sir James. 'I must hang him.'
'You must. . .' She choked as she stared at him, open-mouthed, the horror back again in her wide blue eyes.
'I have a clear duty, madam, as you reminded me. As you said, I dare not be a party to Hagthorpe's leaving the plantations. He must hang. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum. I think that's how it runs. What happens afterwards will not be on my conscience.'
'Not on your conscience!' She was distraught. 'But Geoffrey!' She wrung her hands. 'Geoffrey!' Her tone had become a wail. Then, rallying, she turned in fury on her husband. 'You're mad. Mad! You can't do this. You can't. Hagthorpe must go. What does he matter, after all? What's a slave more or less? In God's name, let him go.'
'And my duty, then? My clear duty?'
His sternness broke her spirit. 'Oh God!' She flung herself on her knees beside his chair, clawing his arm in her anguish.
He cast her off and answered her with a laugh that in its contemptuous mockery was horrible to hear.
Afterwards Captain Blood boasted, perhaps unduly that it was this cruel amusement at the woman's panic that brought light to a situation full of mystery, explained the ready acceptance of it by Sir James, and made plain much else that had been puzzling.
Having laughed his wicked fill, the Deputy-Governor rose, and waved a hand in dismissal of the Captain. 'The matter's settled, then. You'll desire to return to your ship, and I'll not detain you. Yet, stay. You might take a message to my cousin.' He went to unlock the secretaire that stood between the windows. Thence he took a copy of The Poems of Sir John Suckling on one of the sides of which the vellum curled away from the board. 'Condole with him on my behalf, and restore him this. I was waiting for him, to hand it to him myself. But it will be much better this way. Assure him from me that the letter it contained, almost as poetical as the volume itself, has now been faithfully delivered.' And to her ladyship he held out a folded sheet. 'It is for you, ma'am. Take it.' She shrank in fear. 'Take it,' he insisted, and flung it at her. 'We will discuss its contents presently. Meanwhile, it will help you to understand my strict regard for that clear duty of which you reminded me.'
Crouching where he had left her beside his empty chair, her shaking fingers unfolded the sheet. She lowered her eyes to the writing; then, after a moment, with a whimpering sound, let the sheet fall.
Captain Blood was taking in his hands the volume that Sir James had proffered. It was now, I think, that full understanding came to him, and for a moment he was in a dilemma. If the unexpected had helped him at the commencement, the unexpected had certainly come to thwart him now, when in sight of the end.
'I'll wish you a very good day, sir,' said Sir James. 'There is nothing to detain you longer.'
'You're in a mistake, Sir James. There's just one thing. I've changed my mind. I may have done many things in my time for which I should take shame. But I've never yet been anyone's hangman, and I'll be damned if I fill that office in your service. I was quite ready to hang this cousin of yours as an act of reprisal. But I'm damned if I'll hang him to oblige you. I'll send him ashore, Sir James, so that you may hang him yourself.'
The sudden dismay in Sir James' face was no more than Captain Blood expected. Having thus wrecked that sweet plan of vengeance, the Captain went on to show where consolation lay.
'If now that I've changed my mind you were to change yours, and sell me this lad to be my cabin-boy, I'ld not only carry your cousin away with me, but I think I could induce him not to trouble you again.'
Sir James' deep-set eyes questioningly searched the face of the buccaneer.
Captain Blood smiled. 'It's entirely a friendly proposal, Sir James,' he said, and the assurance bore conviction to the troubled mind of the Deputy-Governor.
'Very well,' he said at last. 'You may take the lad. On those terms I make you a gift of him.'