Chapter 5 The Eloping Hidalga — The Fortunes of Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
All through that clear June night Captain Blood and the master of the Heron remained side by side on the poop of the brig, whether sitting or standing or going ever and anon to the rail to issue orders to the crew. And though the voice was always Tim's the orders were always Captain Blood's.
Tim gave him no trouble, it never being in his mind to change a state of things which suited his rascality so well. The reckoning there might have to be with Fairfax gave him no concern. In the main there was silence between them. But when the first grey light of dawn was creeping over the sea, Tim ventured a question that had been perplexing him.
'Sink me if I understand why ye should be wanting to go back to La Hacha. I thought as you was running away from it. Why else did ye ever consent to stop aboard when we weighed anchor?'
Blood laughed softly. 'Maybe it's as well ye should know. Ye'll be the better able to explain things to Mr Fairfax in case they should not be altogether clear to him.
'Ye may find it hard to believe from what you know of me, but there's a streak of chivalry in my nature, a remnant from better days; for indeed, it was that same chivalry that made me what I am. And ye're not to suppose that it's Fairfax I'm taking back to La Hacha and the vengeance of the house of Sotomayor. For I don't care a louse what may happen to the blackguard, and I'm not by nature a vindictive man.
'It's the little hidalga I'm concerned for. It's entirely on her account that we're going back, now that I've sounded the nasty depths of this fellow to whom in a blind evil hour she entrusted herself. We're going to restore her to her family, Tim, safe and undamaged, God be praised. It's little thanks I'm likely to get for it from her. But that may come later, when with a riper knowledge of the world she may have some glimpse of the hell from which I am delivering her.'
Here was something beyond Tim's understanding. He swore in his amazement. Also it placed in jeopardy, it seemed to him, the five thousand pieces he was promised.
'But if ye was running away from La Hacha, there must be danger for ye there. Are ye forgetting that?'
'Faith, I never yet knew a danger that could prevent me from doing what I'm set on. And I'm set on this.'
It persuaded Tim of that streak of chivalry of which Blood had boasted, a quality which the burly master of the Heron could not help regarding as a deplorable flaw in a character of so much rascally perfection.
Ahead the growing daylight showed the loom of the coastline. But seven bells had been made before they were rippling through the greenish water at the mouth of the harbour of Rio de la Hacha, with the sun already high abeam on the larboard side.
They ran in to find an anchorage, and from the pooprail the now weary and blear-eyed Tim continued to be the mouthpiece of the tall man who clung to him like his shadow.
'Bid them let go.'
The order was issued, a rattle followed from the capstan, and the Heron came to anchor within a quarter of a mile of the mole.
'Summon all hands to the waist.'
When the six men who composed the crew of the brig stood assembled there, Blood's next instructions followed. 'Bid them take the cover from the main hatch.'
It was done at once.
'Now order them all down into the hold. Tell them they are to stow it for cargo to be taken aboard.'
It may have puzzled them, but there was no hesitation to obey, and as the last man disappeared into the darkness, Blood drew the master to the companion. 'You'll go and join them, Tim, if you please.'
There was a momentary rebellion. 'Sink me, Captain, can't you--'
'You'll go and join them,' Blood insisted. 'At once.'
Under the compulsion of that tone and of the eyes so blue and cold that looked with deadly menace into his own, Tim's resistance crumbled, and obediently he climbed down into the hold.
Captain Blood, following close upon his heels, dragged the heavy wooden cover over the hatchway again, and dumped it down, insensible to the storm of howling from those he thus imprisoned in the bowels of the brig.
The noise they made aroused Mr Fairfax from an exhausted slumber, on one side of the cabin, and Doña Isabela from a despondent listlessness on the other.
Mr Fairfax, realizing at once that they were at anchor, and puzzled to the point of uneasiness by the fact, wondering, indeed, whether he could have slept the round of the clock, got stiffly from his couch and staggered to the port. It happened to look out towards the open sea, so that all that he beheld was the green, ruffled water, and some boats at a little distance. Clearly, then, they were in harbour. But in what harbour? It was impossible that they could be in Carthagena. But if not in Carthagena, where the devil were they?
He was still asking himself this question when his attention was caught by sounds in the main cabin. He could hear the liquid voice of Alcatrace raised in alarmed, insistent protest.
'De orders, ma'am, are dat you not leabe de cabin. Cap'n's orders, ma'am.'
Doña Isabela, who from her port on the brig's other side had seen and recognized the mole of Rio de la Hacha, without understanding how they came there and without thought even to inquire, had flung in breathless excitement from her stateroom. The resolute negro confronting her and arresting her intended flight almost turned her limp with the sickness of frustration.
'Please, Alcatrace. Please!' On an inspiration she snatched at the pearls in her hair and tore them free. She held them out to him.
'I give you these, Alcatrace. Let me pass.'
What she would do when she had passed and even if she gained the deck she did not stay to think. She was offering all that remained her to bribe a passage of the first obstacle.
The negro's eyes gleamed covetously. But the fear of Fairfax, who might be awake and overhearing, was stronger than his greed. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
'Cap'n's orders, ma'am,' he repeated.
She looked to right and left as a hunted thing will, seeking a way of escape, and her desperate eyes alighted on a brace of pistols on the buffet against the forward bulkhead of the cabin. It was enough. Moving so suddenly as to take him by surprise, she sprang for them, caught them up, and wheeled again to face him with one in each hand, whilst the pearls that had failed her rolled neglected across the cabin floor.
'Out of my way, Alcatrace!'
Before that formidable menace the negro fell back in squealing alarm, and the lady swept out unhindered and made for the deck.
Out there Blood was concluding his preparations for what was yet to do. Most of his anxiety about the immediate future was allayed by the sight of the broad-beamed Dutch ship that was to carry him back to Curaçao beating up into the roads, faithful to the engagement made with him.
But before he could think of boarding the Dutchman, he would take the eloping hidalga ashore, whether she liked it or not, and even if he had to employ force with her. So he went about his preparations. He disengaged the tow-rope of the long-boat from its bollard, and warped the boat forward to the foot of the Jacob's ladder. This done, he made for the gangway leading aft in quest of the lady in whose service the boat was to be employed. He was within a yard of the door when it was suddenly and violently flung open, and he found himself to his amazement confronted by Doña Isabela and her two pistols.
Waving these weapons at him, her voice strident, she addressed him much as she had addressed Alcatrace.
'Out of my way! Out of my way!'
Captain Blood in his time had faced weapons of every kind with imperturbable intrepidity. But he was to confess afterwards that a panic seized him before the threat of those pistols brandished by a woman's trembling hands. Spurred by it to nimbleness, he leapt aside, and flattened himself against a bulkhead in promptest obedience.
He had been prepared for the utmost resistance to his kindly intentions for her, but not for a resistance expressed in so uncompromising and lethal a manner. It was the surprise of it that for a moment put him so utterly out of countenance. When he had recovered from it, he contrived to stand grimly calm before the quivering panic he now perceived in the lady with the pistols.
'Where is Tim?' she demanded. 'I want him. I must be taken ashore at once. At once!'
Blood loosed a breath of relief. 'Glory be! Have ye come to your senses, then, of your own accord? But maybe ye don't know where we are.'
'Oh, I know where I am. I know--' And there, abruptly, she broke off, staring round-eyed at this man whose place and part aboard this ship were suddenly borne in upon her excited senses. His presence, confronting her now, served only to bewilder her. 'But you. . . You. . .' she faltered, breathless, 'You don't know. You are in great danger, sir.'
'I am that, ma'am, for ye will be wagging those pistols at me. Put them down. Put them down, ma'am, a God's name, before we have an accident.' As she obeyed him and lowered her hands, he caught her by the arm. 'Come on ashore with you, then, since that's where ye want to be going. Glory be! Ye're saving me a deal of trouble, for it was ashore I meant to take you whether ye wanted to go or not. Come on.'
But in her amazement she resisted, turning heavy to the suasion of his hand, demanding explanation. 'You meant to take me ashore, you say?'
'Why else do you suppose I brought you back to La Hacha? For it's by my contriving, that we're back here this morning. They say the night brings counsel, but I hardly hoped that a night aboard the brig would bring you such excellent counsel as ye seem to have had.' And again impatiently he sought to hustle her forward.
'You brought me back? You? Captain Blood!'
That gave him pause. His grip of her arm relaxed. His eyes narrowed. 'Ye know that, do you? To be sure he would tell you. Did the blackguard tell you at the same time that he meant to sell me?'
'That,' she said, 'is why I want to go ashore. That is why I thank God to be back in La Hacha.'
'I see. I see.' But his eyes were still grave. 'And when I've put you ashore, can I trust you to hold your tongue until I'm away again?'
There was angry reproach in her glance. She thrust forward her little pointed chin. 'You insult me, sir. Should I betray you? Can you think that?'
'I can't. But I'd like to be sure.'
'I told you last night what I thought of you.'
'So ye did. And heaven knows ye've cause to think better of me still this morning. Come away, then.'
He swept her across the deck, past the hatchway from which the angry sounds of the imprisoned men were still arising, to the Jacob's ladder, and so down into the waiting long-boat.
It was as well they had delayed no longer, for he had no sooner cast off than two faces looked down at them from the head of the ladder in the waist, one black, the other ghastly white in its pallor and terrible in the fury that convulsed it. Mr Fairfax with the help of Alcatrace had staggered to the deck just as Blood and the lady reached the boat.
'Good morning to you, Jorgito!' Blood hailed him. 'Doña Isabela is going ashore with me. But her brother and all the Sotomayors will be alongside presently and devil a doubt but they'll bring the Alcalde with them. They'll be correcting the mistake I made last night when I saved your nasty life.'
'Oh, not that! I do not want that,' Dona Isabela appealed to him.
Blood laughed as he bent his oars. 'D'ye suppose he'll wait? It'll quicken him in getting the cover off the hatch, so as to get under way again. Though the devil knows where he'll go now. Certainly not to Carthagena. It was the notion he took to go there persuaded me he was not the right kind of husband for your ladyship, and decided me to bring you back to your family.'
'That is what made me wish to return,' she said, her dark eyes very wistful. 'All night I prayed for a miracle, and behold my prayer is answered. By you.' She looked at him, a growing wonder in her vivid little face. 'I do not yet know how you did it.'
'Ah!' he said, and rested for a moment on his oars. He drew himself up and sat very erect in the thwart, his lean, intrepid face lighted by a smile half humorous, half complacent. 'I am Captain Blood.'
But before they reached the mole her persistency had drawn a fuller explanation from him, and it brought a great tenderness to eyes that were aswim in tears.
He brought his boat through the swarm of craft with their noisy tenants to the sea-washed steps of the mole, and sprang out under the stare of curious questioning eyes, to hand her from the sternsheets.
Still holding her hand, he said: 'Ye'll forgive me if I don't tarry.'
'Yes, yes. Go. And God go with you.' But she did not yet release her clasp. She leaned nearer. 'Last night I thought you were sent by Heaven to save . . . that man. Today I know that you were sent to save me. Always I shall remember.'
The phrase must have lingered pleasantly in his memory, as we judge from the answer he presently returned to the greeting of the master of the Dutch brig. For with commendable prudence, remembering that Don Francisco de Villamarga was in La Hacha, he denied himself the satisfaction of such thanks as the family of Sotomayor might have been disposed to shower upon him, and pulled steadily away until he brought up against the bulging hull of that most opportunely punctual Dutchman.
Classens, the master, was in the waist to greet him when he climbed aboard.
'Ye're early astir, sir,' the smiling, rubicund Dutchman commended him.
'As becomes a messenger of Heaven,' was the cryptic answer, in which for long thereafter Mynheer Classens vainly sought the jest he supposed to be wrapped in it.
They were in the act of weighing anchor when the Heron, crowding canvas, went rippling past them out to sea, a disgruntled, raging, fearful Heron in full flight from the neighbourhood of the hawks. And in all this adventure that was Captain Blood's only regret.
THE END