Chapter 16 The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
The Apple of Discord
Whilst Tom Leach grovelled there, ignominiously, within a dozen paces of the hut and in full view of those within it, and whilst Major Sands looked on in bewilderment, his indignation at the manner in which Leach had handled him partly soothed by the spectacle of the buccaneer's discomfiture, Monsieur de Bernis was turning to Priscilla, where she stood, her left hand instinctively repairing the disorder of her bodice.
It was a Monsieur de Bernis whom she had never seen until this moment. Hitherto she had beheld him so calm and saturnine in the face of everything that she had come to consider him utterly imperturbable, a man of a self-control that nothing could abate. She beheld him now so pale and shaken that she understood by what an effort he had commanded himself so long as Tom Leach had stood before him.
He stepped up to her in quick concern, and she felt the trembling of the hand he set upon her arm, heard the faltering quiver of his muffled voice as he uttered her name. With a deep, shuddering sigh, she sank against him, limp and helpless now that the strain was overpast. His arm went round her, to support her. And it supported her morally as well as physically. Her spirit was uplifted to feel herself thus, within the compass of an arm, as if within a protecting, sheltering wall. For a moment he held her so, tenderly, reverently. Then, commanding himself, he spoke and his voice vibrated oddly.
'I trust, I pray, that animal did not unduly frighten you.'
She shuddered against him. 'Thank God, oh, thank God that you came!' The very fervour of her thankfulness seemed to feed his wrath.
'Let that evil dog, too, give thanks. For had I delayed, I must certainly have killed him.'
She clutched his hand, and looked up at him in a new fear, her face close to his own. 'You will do nothing more? You will not pursue it?'
His pale lips twisted in a smile of bitter self-mockery. 'I dare not,' he confessed. 'In all my life I have never known the need for so much self-control, to prevent me from doing that which might have ruined us all. But it was hard, dear God! It was hard! To see you held so by that foul beast! Priscilla!'
It was a cry from the depth of a man's soul. Into that utterance of her name he seemed to have packed a dozen emotions: there were anger, grief, tenderness, renunciation, and something too of heartbreak. All this and more she heard in it, and to the spirit in that cry she made surrender of her own spirit. She nestled closer, softly murmuring to him: 'Do not leave me alone again while we are here! Promise me.'
'Can you suppose it?' he answered passionately. 'Can you dream I should ever again leave you exposed to that?'
He bent down to the golden head that rested against his breast, and reverently touched it with his lips, scarcely aware of what he did, as he thus expressed an overmastering emotion into which his fears for her had betrayed him.
It was at this point that the Major, a spectator in whom amazement had been piled upon amazement, accounted it necessary to interfere, before Priscilla, newly wrenched from the importunate arms of one buccaneer, should melt too completely into those of another.
'Stab me!' quoth he, rolling forward, 'what's here?'
The indignation rumbling in his voice, awakened de Bernis to realities, arrested him in that easy and increasing surrender to emotion. His recovery of his ready wits was abrupt and complete. Without relaxing his hold upon the girl, or making the least change in his attitude, he spoke swiftly through his teeth.
'Will you ruin all, you fool? What are you supposing? Is she not my wife in the eyes of that man who is gaping at us at this moment? I have a part to play, sir. Begone! Leave me to play it.'
The Major gaped, relieved.
'I beg your pardon, de Bernis.' He hung there, hesitating. 'As her brother, it is natural I, too, should remain to comfort. I have done nothing to betray you.'
But Miss Priscilla evidently considered that the comedy had gone far enough. As if also recalled to realities, she disengaged herself from de Bernis' arm, moved away to a chair, and sat down, like one exhausted. She was still very white, and dark shadows had gathered under her eyes. Her left hand was still clutching to her breast the tattered portions of the bodice.
'If you would both leave me for a little while,' she begged them.
Understanding, they went. They paced the beach awhile, the Major inveighing furiously but impotently, and seeming to embrace Monsieur de Bernis together with Tom Leach in the scope of that windy invective. Monsieur de Bernis, heeding him not at all, indeed scarcely hearing him, paced beside him in moody abstraction. He awakened from that at last to hear the Major saying:
'Of late, sir, I have been giving you my trust. But I warn you that, unless you can keep these cut-throat friends of yours in order, that trust will be destroyed.'
'In such a case, sir, you would have my sympathy,' said de Bernis, and upon that abruptly quitted the Major's side.
Looking round for an explanation of a conduct that seemed to him so odd, Major Sands saw Pierre emerging from among the trees. It was towards him that de Bernis was hurrying. The Major followed, grumbling ever.
He heard the faint mutter of Pierre's rapid French as de Bernis approached him, and at what the half-caste said, his master's shoulders sagged a little, and he stood very still and very pensive, his lip between finger and thumb.
After a moment, by when Major Sands was at his elbow, he spoke, but whether to himself or to Pierre, who stood before him, waiting, was not plain. Even the Major's scant knowledge of French enabled him to understand what de Bernis said.
'Nevertheless, it is necessary to do something.'
After which he paced away slowly towards the hut, and then, like a man who takes a sudden resolve, swung on his heel, and set out briskly to walk across the beach towards the buccaneer encampment.
As he approached it, a couple of men who were boucanning turtle over a fire, looked up and greeted him with the friendly familiarity which he had encouraged in them. But for once he swung past them without noticing it.
It was already a little after noon, and in the Captain's hut, the leaders were sitting down to dinner, when Monsieur de Bernis suddenly made his appearance among them, his aspect stem and forbidding.
Tom Leach, who by now had cooled to a state of viciousness that superficially at least was normal, eyed him furtively and at first, startled by that sudden entrance, in apprehension. But the emotion was not one that ever lasted long with Leach. It passed in a flash, leaving him armed in brazen impudence to meet the attack which he had every cause to expect.
Monsieur de Bernis came to the empty foot of the table, directly facing Leach who occupied the head. On the Frenchman's right were Bundry and Halliwell, on his left Ellis and Wogan. All four of them looked up from their meat, to gape at his preternatural gravity.
His voice was cold and hard and brisk, his speech direct and peremptory.
'You may have some notion of what brings me, Captain. I have a warning for you. I need waste no unnecessary words upon it. If the plate fleet matters to you and you wish me to bring you to it, you'll be civil henceforth, and you'll avoid my quarters.'
'By God...' Leach was beginning, half-rising in his seat.
'Wait!' thundered de Bernis, and by tone and gesture thrust him back momentarily silenced. The Frenchman swung to Leach's officers. 'If the plate fleet matters to you, and you desire that I bring you to it, you'll see that he obeys my injunction. If I have a repetition of what happened this morning, if Tom Leach ventures within twenty yards of my encampment again, come what may, I dissociate myself from you, and I vow to you here that not a single piece of eight of all that treasure will any one of you ever touch. If I am to respect my articles, Tom Leach shall respect my wife, and you others shall see that he respects her.'
The Captain's dark eyes gleamed their hatred and malice as they met the bold, challenging glance of de Bernis across the length of the table.
From the others there were mutterings of resentment provoked by the Frenchman's arrogant tone and air. But one there was who spoke out, and this was the impassive, clay-faced Bundry. He turned his shoulder to de Bernis, so as to face the Captain.
'So you've neglected the warning we gave you, Captain?' he said, in that level voice of his that could be so threatening in its iciness.
The momentary flash of de Bernis' eyes might have betrayed the discovery made to him by those words. But at the time all were looking at the Captain, awaiting his reply. Surprised, however, by Bundry's cold, obvious challenge, Leach was momentarily at a loss; whilst de Bernis, encouraged by signs of a support he had not suspected, took advantage of the pause to turn the sword in the wound, which, exceeding all expectations, he perceived he had made.
'I have this to add, Tom, and you would do well to reflect upon it, and to take it for a compass by which to steer your course: To the success of this enterprise against the Spaniard, I am necessary. You are not. The enterprise can quite well go forward without you. It cannot go forward without me. I say no more. But if you have any prudence in your foul head, Tom, you'll use it to rake together some scraps of decency, and put them in your conduct. That is all. The quarrel may end here if you so choose; or it may go forward if you choose. I leave you to decide it.'
And without giving Leach time to assemble words in which to reply, he turned on his heel and departed as abruptly as he had come, leaving ferment behind him.
Leach was on his feet, ordures of speech on his writhing lips, and Wogan was supplying a chorus to him, when Bundry's contemptuous voice interrupted both.
'Quiet, Wogan, you fool! There's mischief enough without your adding to this hell's brew. As for you, Tom, you've heard, and I suppose ye've sense enough left in yourself to recognize sense when ye hear it.'
'Rot you in hell, Bundry! Does thee suppose I'll stomach the impudence o' yon pimpish ape? Does thee suppose...'
'I suppose ye know the plate fleet matters to us more than you!' thundered Bundry, getting to his feet, losing control of himself for once, and banging the table before him.
A silence followed until broken by the Captain's voice, soft, sly, unutterably wicked. 'Be that so, Bundry? Be that so?' His hand was groping slowly round his belt, his eyes never leaving Bundry's masklike face.
It began to look as if Monsieur de Bernis had flung the apple of discord amongst them to some purpose, as if in a moment blood would be shed over that table and those buccaneer leaders would be at one another's throats. It was Halliwell who averted it. He rose and leaned forward, so that his great bulk was interposed between the Captain and Bundry.
'In the name of God, Tom, come to your senses. Will ye ruin all out o' impatience for a whey-faced doxy who'll be safely under your hand once the pieces of eight are under ours?'
There was promise here as well as admonition. Leach, with all his impatiences quenched at the moment by other matters, was steadied by it, at least far enough to look at the others. Bundry's mind, he knew. Ellis' he read in the scowl of disapproval with which the mate of the Black Swan was regarding him. Halliwell, it was plain, would join them if it came to a trial of strength on this issue. The only one upon whom Leach could count in that moment seemed to be Wogan, and how long Wogan would remain on the weaker side was not a matter in which Leach could put much faith.
With inward rage, which he strove to dissemble, the Captain perceived only defeat ahead of him if he persisted. Topgallant Charley, that sly French devil, had been too clever for him, and had so shifted the quarrel that it now lay between Leach and his officers.
'Aye, aye,' he growled, 'mebbe I's acted foolish like. There's sense in what thee says, Ned. But there's poison in what yon Bundry's said.' He fetched a whine into his voice. 'To say that th' plate fleet matters more to you than I does!'
''Twas ill said, Bundry,' Wogan censured him. 'So, God save me, 'twas ill said.'
'So ill said that it's my right to ask satisfaction.' Leach was looking at the pallid shipmaster.
If Bundry trembled in the heart of him, aware of the vaunted deadly swordsmanship of his Captain, and of what might betide him if Leach were to succeed in making of this affair a personal quarrel with himself, his countenance remained unmoved.
'Ye've afforded it,' he said, 'when ye confessed that ye may have acted foolish. Let it rest there.'
Leach perceived fear in Bundry's desire to drop the matter. He perceived also that the others held aloof now, and took no sides in the personal issue which he had given the matter. By this he took heart again.
'That's easy said, Bundry. But will it rest? After all, here's a deal o' pother about naught, made up by that slippery devil Bernis. Am Ito turn t'other cheek to him, or slink about before him like a cur wi's tail atween his legs no matter what he may do or say, just because he's got th' secret o' th' plate fleet? Sink me into hell! That's no gait for a Captain, and it's not th' way o' Tom Leach. Let it be understood. So long as Charley's civil, I'll keep the peace; but not a moment longer, plate fleet or no plate fleet. And if ye expects more o' me, you, Bundry, or any other of ye--a God's name say so plainly now, and let's know where we stand.'
'Sure that's reasonable enough,' Wogan supported him.
Ellis and Halliwell, whilst saying nothing, showed by their attitude that they were not disposed to dispute a matter which Leach had found a way to render personal with any one of them who might oppose him. United they must easily have subdued him. But the mistrust of each for his neighbour dissolved the momentary bond that had existed amongst them, and no one of them would take it upon himself to bell the cat, lest he should find himself suddenly abandoned by the others.
Bundry perceived clearly the crude subtlety and cunning by which Leach had caught him; and he knew that it would be suicidal to pursue the matter as a personal quarrel with his formidable Captain. So he abandoned the position which he had so boldly taken up.
'No one could expect more of ye, Captain. But ye'll remember that we expect that much.'
'That much ye shall have. Ye can be sure of it.'
Upon which, with peace restored, they sat down to resume their interrupted meal.