Chapter 2 The Eloping Hidalga — The Fortunes of Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
If she found the matter bewildering, she did not pursue it. Concern enough for her at the moment lay in the condition of her Englishman and the evidently urgent need of getting him away before his assailants returned, reinforced, to finish him. She could not waste moments so precious in arguing with an eccentric: possibly she had not even any thoughts to spare him.
As the boat shot away from the mole, she sank down in the sternsheets at the side of her companion, who had swooned. On his other side, Blood was kneeling, and the deft fingers of the buccaneer, who once had been a surgeon, located and gropingly examined that wound, high in the shoulder.
'Give yourself peace,' he comforted the girl. 'This is no great matter. A little bloodletting has made him faint. That is all. You'll soon have him well again.'
She breathed a little prayer of thanks, 'Gracias a Dios,' then, with a backward glance in the direction of the mole, urged the men to greater effort.
As the boat sped over the dark water towards a ship's lantern a half-mile away, the Englishman stirred and looked about him.
'What the plague. . .' he began, and struggled to rise.
Blood's hand restrained him. 'Quiet,' he said. 'There's no need for alarm. We're taking you aboard.'
'Taking me aboard? Who the devil are you?'
'Jorgito,' the girl cried, 'it is the gentleman who saved your life.'
'Odso! You're there, Isabelita?' His next question showed that he took in the situation. 'Are they following?'
When she had reassured him and pointed ahead to the ship's lantern towards which they were heading, he laughed softly, then cursed the Indians.
'Faster, you lazy dogs! Bend your backs to it, you louts.'
The rowers increased their effort, breathing stertorously. The man laughed again, softly, as before, a fleering, mocking sound.
'So, so. We've had the luck to win clear of that gin with no more than a scratch. Yet, God's my life, it's more than a scratch. I'm bleeding like a Christian martyr.'
'It's nothing,' Blood reassured him. 'You've lost some blood. But once aboard we'll staunch the wound and make you comfortable.'
'Faith, you talk like a sawbones.'
'It's what I am.'
'Gadso! Was there ever greater luck. Eh, Isabelita? A swordsman to rescue me and a doctor to heal me, all in one. There's a providence watching over me this night. An omen, sweetheart.'
'A mercy,' she corrected on a crooning note, and drew closer to him.
And now from their scraps of talk, Blood pieced together the tale of their exact relationship. They were an eloping pair, these two--this Englishman, whose name was George Fairfax, and this little hidalga of the great family of Sotomayor. His late assailants were her brother and two friends, bent upon frustrating the elopement. Her brother was the Spaniard who had escaped uninjured from the encounter, and it was his pursuit in force which she dreaded and for which she continually looked back towards the receding mole. By the time, however, that agitated lights came dancing at last along the water's edge, the long-boat was in the black shadow of a two-masted brig, bumping against her side, whilst from her deck a gruff English voice was hailing them.
The lady was the first to swarm the accommodation ladder. Then followed Fairfax, with Blood immediately and so closely behind as to support him and, indeed, partly carry him aboard.
At the head of the ladder they were received by a large man with a face that showed hot in the light of a lantern slung from the mainmast, who overwhelmed them with alarmed questions.
Fairfax, steadying himself against the bulkhead, gasped for breath, and broke into that interrogatory flow sharply to rap out his orders.
'Get under way at once, Tim. No time to get the boat aboard. Take her in tow. And don't stay to take up anchor. Cut the cable. Hoist sail and let's away. Thank God the wind serves. We shall have the Alcalde and all the alguaziles of la Hacha aboard if we delay. So stir your damned bones.'
Tim's roaring voice was passing on the orders and men were leaping to obey, when the lady set a hand on her lover's arm.
'But this gentleman, George. You forget him. He does not know where we go.'
Fairfax supported himself with a hand on Blood's shoulder. He turned his head to peer into the countenance of his preserver, and there was a scowl on the lean, dark face.
'Ye'll have gathered I can't be delayed,' he said.
'Faith, it's very glad to gather it I've been,' was the easy answer. 'And it's little I'm caring where you go, so long as it's away from Rio de la Hacha.'
The dark face lightened. The man laughed softly. 'Running away too, are you? Damn my blood! You're most accommodating. It seems all of a piece. Look alive, Tim. Can't these lubbers of yours move no faster?'
There was a blast from the master's whistle, and naked feet pattered at speed across the deck. Tim spoke briskly and savagely, to stimulate their efforts, then sprang to the side to shout his orders to the Indians still in the boat alongside.
'Get you below, sir,' he begged his employer. 'I'll come to you as soon as we are under way and the course is set.'
It was Blood who assisted Fairfax to the cabin--a place of fair proportions if rudely equipped, lighted by a slush-lamp that swung above the bare table. The lady, breathing tenderest solicitude, followed closely.
To receive them a negro lad emerged from a stateroom on the larboard side. He cried out at sight of the blood with which his master's shirt was drenched, and stood arrested, teeth and eyeballs flashing in that startled dusky face.
Assuming authority, Blood ordered him to lend a hand, and between them they carried Fairfax, whose senses were beginning to swim again, through the doorway which the steward had left open, and there removed his shoes and got him to bed.
Then Blood despatched the boy, who answered to the name of Alcatrace, to the galley for hot water and to the Captain of the ship's medicine-chest.
On the narrow bed, Fairfax, a man as tall and well-knit as Blood himself, reclined in a sitting posture, propped by all the pillows available. He wore his own hair, and the reddish-brown cloud of it half veiled his pallid, bony countenance as with eyes half closed his head lolled weakly forward.
Having disposed of him comfortably, Blood cut away his sodden shirt and laid bare his vigorous torso.
When the steward returned with a can of water, some linen and a cedar box containing the ship's poor store of medicines, the lady followed him into the stateroom, begging to be allowed to help. Through the ports that stood open to the purple tropical night, she heard the creak of blocks and the thud of the sails as they took the wind, and it was with immense relief that she felt at last under her feet the forward heave of the unleashed brig. One anxiety at least was now allayed, and the danger of recapture overpast.
Courteously Blood welcomed her assistance. Observing her now in the light, he found her to agree with the impressions he had already formed. A slight wisp of womanhood, little more than a child, and probably not long out of the hands of the nuns, she showed him a winsome, eager face, and two shining eyes intensely black against the waxen pallor in which they were set. Her gold-laced gown of black, with beautiful point of Spain at throat and wrists, and, some pearls of obvious price entwined in her glossy tresses, were, like the proud air investing her, those of a person of rank.
She proved quick to understand Blood's requirements and deft to execute them, and thus, with her assistance, he worked upon the man for love of whom this little hidalga of the great house of Sotomayor was apparently burning her boats. Carefully, tenderly, he washed the purple lips of the wound in the shoulder, which was still oozing. In the medicine-chest held for him by Alcatrace he discovered at least some arnica, and of this he made a liberal application. It produced a fiercely reviving effect. Fairfax threw up his head.
'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.'
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.'