Chapter 7 The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
Topgallant
Monsieur de Bernis removed the pistol-bearing stole from about his neck, lifted over his head the baldrick, to the carriages of which his long rapier was attached, and delivered one and the other to Pierre, with orders to bestow them in his cabin. They had been assumed chiefly for decorative purposes, and they had served their turn.
Next he went to open the door of the cabin into which he had ushered his fellow voyagers, and invited them to come forth again.
They came, Miss Priscilla pale and shaken, yet making a spirited attempt to conceal her feelings, the Major, also pallid, but truculent, and with no notion of dissembling.
'Perhaps you'll tell us, sir, precisely what you intend by us,' he demanded aggressively.
They might have observed had they looked more closely that de Bernis, himself, wore the strained, jaded air of a man who has passed through an ordeal. But not on that account did his patience desert him. He ignored the Major, however, and addressed himself entirely to the lady, who had come to lean against the table.
'Be assured, at least, that I intend the best that I can do.'
But Major Sands did not mean to be ignored. 'Why should you?' he demanded. 'Being what you are, why should you?'
De Bernis smiled wearily. 'I see that you've been eavesdropping. I can but assure you, and you, mademoiselle, that in spite of what I am, you shall be as safe as I can contrive to make you.'
Miss Priscilla looked at him with troubled eyes. 'Was it true, what you told that pirate? Are you, indeed, associating yourself with those...those men?'
Monsieur de Bernis took time to answer her. 'The question implies a doubt. You find it incredible. From you that is a compliment. I thank you for it. But I may not encourage it.'
'Then your service to Captain Bransome, your taking command on the gun-deck, was a pretence?'
'A reasonable inference.' He shrugged. 'It is useless to argue against facts. Remembering that, you will perhaps remember that it is also a fact that, for the time being at least, I have made you safe from Captain Leach and his crew. If the word of a buccaneer counts for anything with you, believe that it will be my aim to send you safely home to England. Unfortunately, this is not possible at once. Delays are unavoidable now. And there may be anxieties and discomforts. But I hope--and, indeed, I am confident--nothing worse. Meanwhile, I will beg you to keep the cabin, where I shall contrive that you are private.'
Upon that he left them to go on deck.
In the gloom of the gangway he only just saved himself from tripping over a body. It proved to be that of Sam the steward, who had been caught there and cut down by the buccaneers when they had been on their way to invade the cabin. Monsieur de Bernis verified that the Negro was dead, and passed on.
He came out into the horrible shambles of the waist, still strewn with the bodies of the fallen men who had composed the crew of the Centaur and of three or four buccaneers whom they had cut down before being, themselves, overwhelmed.
Captain Bransome lay, with a cloven skull, where he had fallen at the foot of the companion, so that to go up to the quarter-deck de Bernis had to step over the body of that good-natured burly fellow, who last night had been rejoicing in the thought that this was his last voyage. His last voyage it had proved, indeed, and it had ended sooner far than he had been expecting.
If de Bernis thought of this and bestowed an inward sigh on that honest life, so ruthlessly and wantonly extinguished in the very moment of reaching for the reward of its industry and courage, his countenance remained nevertheless set and impassive, as he went up the companion, a brave, jaunty figure in his violet and silver.
From a knot of men gathered about the main hatch, from which the coaming had been removed, came a hailing cheer for him in a sudden cry of:
'Topgallant! Topgallant!'
It informed him that the news of his presence and identity and of the enterprise to which he was to lead them had already spread through the ranks of Tom Leach's followers.
The cry was taken up by others on the forecastle. It drowned the sounds of merriment that were emerging from the galley, to tell of ruffians finding entertainment there.
De Bernis paused, midway in his ascent of the companion, and half-turned to wave a hand in acknowledgement to his acclaimers. Then he went on, and stepped upon the quarter-deck, to meet the lowering glance of Leach. The Captain engaged there with Wogan and a score of hands, considering the tangle overhead which had resulted from the boarding, and dictating measures for disengaging the two vessels, which now, with yards almost bare, were drifting slowly before the breeze. Aboard both ships hands were already aloft, clearing the yards of the Black Swan's foremast from those of the Centaur's mizzen. In boarding, the buccaneers had grappled their fore-chains to the after-chains of the Centaur, so as to avoid coming alongside her gun-ports, lest, as a last act of despairing rage, the merchantman should have fired a broadside when in touch, even at the risk of herself being sunk. A gangway still connected the forecastle of the Black Swan with the poop of the Centaur.
It was in the articles that Monsieur de Bernis had signed with Captain Leach that the Frenchman should take command of the captured vessel with a prize crew from the Black Swan. De Bernis had insisted upon this, claiming it as due to a leader of his distinction among buccaneers. Grudgingly Captain Leach had yielded the point. But now that de Bernis came on deck to exercise his command, he was to learn that the other had found a way to curtail it.
'Wogan stays aboard wi' you,' he was curtly informed. 'Ye'll need a lieutenant. And ye'll have Halliwell for your sailing-master.'
De Bernis was under no delusion as to his real intention. These men were placed here by the pirate's suspicious nature to keep him honest. He displayed, however, no sign of resentment.
'That suits me very well, provided it is understood they take their orders from me.' And he proceeded immediately to the assertion of his authority. 'We'll begin at once by getting the carpenters to work on the rudder-head, and swabbers to clean up the mess you've made on these decks. I like a tidy ship.'
Leach eyed him malevolently, with the suspicion of a sneer, but offered him no hindrance. Within ten minutes a score of hands were at the work. The grim evidences of the fight were heaved overboard, and with pails and swabs, a dozen bare-legged fellows were sluicing and swabbing the waist, the quarter-deck, and the poop, whilst from below came the sounds of the carpenters' hammers to announce the progress of repairs upon the rudder-head, so that the steering-tackles might be restored.
With the same brisk authority de Bernis took in hand the disentangling of the fouled rigging, himself ordering the raising and lowering of yards and spars so as to clear them, displaying in all that he did his practical seamanship, and ignoring Halliwell, the sailing-master, whom Leach had summoned.
An hour later, when the two ships were ready to part company, and none but the crew of a hundred men appointed to the Centaur remained aboard her, Leach himself was disposed to return to his own vessel.
On the point of doing so, he must, of course, require at last of de Bernis to be informed of their destination.
'We steer a course due south-west, for the islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Maracaybo,' he was answered. 'If we should become separated, our rendezvous is off Cape de la Vela.'
'Is that our destination? Do we wait there for the plate fleet?' Keenness gleamed in the little dark eyes of the buccaneer as they watched de Bernis' countenance.
'Oh, no,' he was answered. 'That is merely the first stage of our voyage.'
'And from there?' Leach pressed him.
'That you shall learn when we get there.'
Leach's annoyance displayed itself. Look'ee, Bernis'...he was beginning with some vehemence. Then he checked, shrugged, turned on his heel, and so departed to his own ship, there to wait until the restoration of the Centaur's steering-tackles and repairs to her yards should enable them to proceed.
Meanwhile, the Black Swan was warped away by sweeps from the other vessel, and stood by, hove to.
Miss Priscilla and Major Sands were first made aware of this manoeuvre by the sudden growth of daylight in the cabin following upon the withdrawal of the great screen formed by the hull of the Black Swan on their larboard quarter. It led to the breaking of the silence which had endured between them for some time. The Major, filled by what he conceived a just resentment of Miss Priscilla's obstinate reluctance fully to accept his definite conclusions concerning Monsieur de Bernis, had sat moodily sulking for the last half-hour.
Miss Priscilla, listless on the stern-locker, leaning sideways against a bulkhead, now called his attention to the other vessel's withdrawal.
He rose from his seat at the table, where he had been fortifying himself out of the rum left there by the buccaneers, and crossed in silence to her side.
'Heaven knows what it means for us,' she said.
His answer was first a dismal sigh, and then, since what fills a man's mind excessively must be flowing over, he began again upon a theme which had already led them as near the edge of disagreement as was possible for two persons so closely allied by a common peril.
'It is incredible that you should for a moment have believed in this man, Priscilla. Incredible, stab me! Let it serve you as a warning against your own inexperience. Another time perhaps you will trust to my riper judgement.'
'There may not be another time,' she reminded him.
'Indeed, I fear that there may not be.'
'If there is, it will be thanks to Monsieur de Bernis.'
This was to reopen the discussion at its bitterest point. It looked as if it would lead again to sharp disagreement.
'To Monsieur de Bernis? To him! Thanks to him?' The Major turned away in his annoyance. He strode across the cabin and back again. He and Miss Priscilla were alone there, Pierre having withdrawn to the little pantry that had been the unfortunate Samuel's stronghold at the forward end of the cabin on the starboard side.
'You can still put trust in him? In this pirate rogue?'
'I can put trust in no one else. If he fails us...' She made a little gesture of helplessness to complete her meaning.
Major Sands would have given years of his life to have been able to reproach her with her lack of trust in himself. Since the circumstances denied him this consolation, he grew increasingly bitter.
'You can still say this after all that we have overheard? Knowing the devilry now afoot? Knowing that this rascal is making common cause with these other scoundrels? You can say this when he had the insolence to pass you off as his wife?'
'In what case should we be if he had not? That was something done to save me.'
'You are quite sure of that? 'Slife! Then ye're singularly trusting.'
Her pallor deepened before the implication of his sneer. But she flashed defiance of his mistrust. During the silence that had prevailed between them, she had been thinking deeply, reviewing the whole situation; and she had perceived at least one little feature that told strongly in de Bernis' favour. She mentioned it now.
'If his motives were as base as you imply, why did he trouble to spare you? Why did he pass you off as his brother-in-law?'
To the Major it was a startling question, to which at the moment he could discover no plausible answer. In that, however, he saw no reason why he should depart from his settled conviction, and admit an explanation favourable to de Bernis. 'Can I guess his base intentions?'
'Yet you are guessing them. Guessing them to be base. Why?' She smiled a little wanly. 'If he had let them cut your throat, you could not now be speaking evil of him.'
'Gadslife, madam!' He grew almost apoplectic. 'For obstinacy commend me to a woman. I hope the sequel may justify this stubborn, unreasonable belief in a blackguard. I hope it may. But, to be frank, I cannot hold the hope with confidence. Stab me if I can!'
'Now that is brave in you, Major Sands. Brave--is it not?--to have so little regard for the anxieties of a woman in my case.'
He was stung to penitence. 'Oh, forgive me, Priscilla. It is just my anxiety for you that goads me on. Blunderingly, perhaps. I would give my life for you, my dear...'
It was Monsieur de Bernis that interrupted him. 'Let us hope, my dear Major, that so much may not be required of you.'
Startled, Major Sands swung round, to see the Frenchman standing within the cabin doorway. He entered, and closed the door. He advanced towards them, his manner quietly assured. 'All is now arranged,' he informed them, in his pleasant, level voice. 'I am in command of this ship, and you will regard yourselves as my guests.'
'And Captain Bransome, sir?' she asked him, her voice a little out of control, her eyes watching him the while.
His dark, saturnine face, however, was entirely unrevealing. It was as expressionless as his tone when he answered her after a perceptible pause.
'Captain Bransome did his duty by his ship. Had he behaved as bravely earlier, he might now be alive.'
'Dead! He is dead?' The horror of it drove her white to the very lips. It seemed so impossible that a man so vigorous and hearty, so full of life, going home in such fond expectancy of reunion with his wife and the family which scarcely knew him, should have been cut off so abruptly and cruelly.
De Bernis slightly inclined his head. 'He said last night that this was his last voyage. Oddly prophetic; yet falsely so. He is at peace. He looked to the future, he said, to make amends to him for the past. He is spared the discovery that the future can never do that.'
'My God!' cried the Major, 'this is horrible! And you can talk of it so? You might have saved that poor fellow...'
'Ah, that, no,' de Bernis interrupted. 'When I went on deck, it was already too late. Indeed, the fight was ended before Leach came down here.'
'And the others? The crew?'
In the same colourless voice de Bernis replied: 'It is not the practice of Captain Leach to take prisoners.'
Miss Priscilla uttered a groan, and sank her face into her hands. She was assailed by a feeling of nausea, of faintness. As from a distance she heard that level, pleasantly modulated voice speaking in its stiff, faultless English faintly softened by a Gallic accent. 'Let my sense of hospitality reassure you both. Here you are in no danger, beyond that of a little delay and inconvenience. Now that all is arranged, I can repeat the assurance with confidence.'
Hotly contemptuous came the answer from Major Sands: 'What is it worth, sir, this assurance from you who usurp the place of that murdered man?'
Monsieur de Bernis preserved an unruffled urbanity. 'Whatever it may be worth, it is all that I have to offer. You would be wise to rest content with it.'
He turned aside, to summon Pierre and give him orders to lay dinner for five persons. He explained this, addressing himself to Miss Priscilla. 'My lieutenant and my sailing-master will take their meals with us. I would have spared you this but that it would scarcely be prudent. Beyond that, however, you need fear no invasion of your privacy, and, except during meals, this cabin will be exclusively your own.'
Her clear blue eyes considered him steadily and searchingly, from out of her pallid face. But his aloof and rather chilling impassivity baffled scrutiny. She inclined her head.
'We are in your power, sir. It only remains for us to thank-you for any consideration you may show us.'
A little frown puckered his dark brow. 'In my power? Oh, that! Say, rather, under my protection.'
'Is there a difference?'
'When we are all in the power of circumstances, Priscilla.'
She imagined the beginnings of a disclosure in this, and would have pursued it, but the Major must at that moment come blundering in, indignantly.
'You make very free with Miss Harradine's name, sir.'
'Of necessity. Like the rest. Is she not my wife? And are you not my brother-in-law, my dear Bartholomew?'
The Major quivered, and glared at him. Perceiving the one and the other, Monsieur de Bernis stiffened as if he had been struck. He spoke now with an incisive edge to his tone. 'You embarrass me damnably. Another in my place might end it quickly. Pray remember that, Bartholomew. And be good enough, both of you, to address me as Charles, unless you want to endanger your necks with my own. The intimacy may be distasteful to you, Bartholomew. But less distasteful, I hope, than to find yourself swinging from a yardarm. That is not at all amusing.'
On that he went out again, leaving the Major in a fever of indignation.
'By God! That cut-throat had the audacity to threaten me, I think.' From that reckless beginning he would have continued recklessly to pour out his wrath had Priscilla not collected wit and strength to check him, her eyes on the lean, soft-footed half-caste, who was busy with the table.
'After all, Bart,' she reminded him, 'Monsieur de Bernis did not invite Captain Leach to come aboard the Centaur.'
'But he welcomed him! He associates himself with this bloodthirsty scoundrel! He has confessed that it was his intention to join that murderer, and that the ruffian's assault of us was timely. What better is he?'
'I wonder?' said Miss Priscilla.
Amazement brimmed his pale eyes. 'You wonder? After what you've just heard? When you know him to be in command here in the place of that poor murdered Bransome?'
'Oh, but that proves nothing--as against all the rest.'
'Nothing? It proves that he's a damned pirate, a cut-throat villain...'
She was on her feet to check him; for Pierre, who had momentarily passed into the pantry, was coming forth again. 'And you prove that you're a fool,' was her interruption. 'And unless you can succeed in concealing it, you'll come by a fool's end before long, and you may drag others with you.'
He could only gasp and stare, shocked, scandalized beyond all expression that a child, so meek and gentle as he had always supposed Priscilla, should bring herself to address him--a man of his parts, an officer of his consequence--in such outrageous terms. It passed all understanding. He could but suppose that the events of that terrible morning must have unbalanced her reason. When he had recovered breath, he began remonstrances, which she cut short with the same incredible new-found manner. In a moment of Pierre's absence, she stepped close up to him, caught his arm in a tight grip, and muttered swiftly: 'Will you rant so before that man of his? Have you no sense or discretion?'
If she thus made him aware that she was justified of her apprehensions, nothing in his view could justify the terms she chose in which to convey her warning to him. He was profoundly annoyed, his sense of fitness outraged. He said so, pompously. And having said so lapsed again into a sullen silence in which she judged it best to leave him, since in that mood at least he could do no damage.
Thus until Monsieur de Bernis returned, accompanied now by the tall Irishman Wogan, and an extremely corpulent but nevertheless powerful-looking man, of middle height with enormous shoulders, an enormous dewlap, and features that were by contrast ridiculously small. He presented him as Halliwell, the sailing-master.
They got to table, and Pierre, ever swift and silent in his movements, a very shadow of a man, came forth to wait upon them.
De Bernis took the chair in which the ill-starred Bransome had sat, so care-free and good-humoured, as lately as last night. He placed Miss Priscilla and the Major on his right, with their backs to the light, Wogan on his immediate left, and the elephantine sailing-master beyond him.
It was a gloomy meal. At first the pirates were disposed to be hilarious. But something compelling in de Bernis' cold manner and the silent aloofness of the supposed Madame de Bernis and her supposed brother gradually damped their humour. Wogan's dark, flat-featured face became mask-like in sullen resentment. The sailing-master, however, a man of voracious appetite, considering nothing at table of an importance to compare with the victuals, discovered here all the entertainment he could desire in the fresh meat and vegetables in which the Centaur was well-found. Noisy and repulsive in his feeding, he paid little heed to anything else.
The Major curbed himself with difficulty from reproving the fellow's abominable table-manners. As for Miss Priscilla, overcome by the horrors of the day upon which these table companions placed a culminating horror, secretly racked by fears, and entirely miserable, yet bravely dissembling it, she made a pretence of eating that could have deceived no one who had been concerned to observe it.