Chapter 21 The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini
The Surrender
In miserable dejection Miss Priscilla watched the hands mustered for shore go over the side, followed by Lieutenant Sharples. From the bulwarks she saw them board the longboat in which Pierre waited, saw it cast off and draw away towards the beach.
An officer came to her with Sir Henry's compliments and would she and Major Sands accept the Admiral's hospitality in the great cabin.
Major Sands supported the invitation kindly, gentle concern now replacing in him an indignation which he perceived could nothing profit him.
Moreover a link between them that had almost snapped was restored by his sense that they were fellow victims of the overbearing vulgarity of that pirate-knight Sir Henry Morgan. Then, too, the Major was disposed to be magnanimous and to forgive all offence out of regard for the fact that the offender was a woman, young and tender, who had been tried beyond all endurance. It was therefore in a tone of solicitude that he said:
'You will be better in the cabin, Priscilla.'
'I thank-you,' she answered coldly. 'I am well enough here.'
The officer bowed and withdrew. She remained leaning on the bulwarks, her gaze following the boat in its swift journey towards the beach, where the buccaneers waited. She could make out quite clearly amongst them, well in the foreground, the tall, commanding figure of Monsieur de Bernis. Bundry Halliwell, and Ellis were with him, and the four of them made a group apart from the rest.
Major Sands stood at her elbow. 'My dear Priscilla, this is the end of the adventure, and we have deep cause for thankfulness that it should end so. Deep cause.'
'We have,' she miserably agreed with him. 'For thankfulness to Charles de Bernis.'
This was not at all the answer he desired. But he realized the futility of argument with a mind obsessed and obstinate. It could lead only to acrimony, and acrimony was the last thing the Major desired between them. He could afford, after all, he reflected, to be generous. The nightmare composed of all the happenings since they had first seen de Bernis climbing the accommodation ladder of the Centaur in Fort Royal Bay, a month ago, was now at an end. Soon, now this swaggering, posturing pirate would pay the price of his misdeeds; they would be on their way to England at last, with all this happily behind them, an ugly, fantastic interlude in their well-ordered lives which time would rapidly erase from the tablets of their memories. Priscilla would be restored to the sanity disturbed in her by the passage across her tender life of that ruffling filibuster. Magnanimously Major Sands would forget the incident, and all would be again as it had been before this disastrous adventure.
Thus Major Sands reassured himself and took confident comfort, whilst Miss Priscilla watched the boat's progress towards land.
Its keel grated on the fine shingle, and Lieutenant Sharples stepped ashore alone, leaving his musketeers in the boat with their firelocks at the ready. Miss Priscilla could distinctly make out the officer in his long red coat, standing stiffly before Monsieur de Bernis and his three companions. In the background the main body of the buccaneers was assembled. They were drawn up with some semblance of order in their ranks, and it was obvious that they were attentive to what was passing between their leaders and the representative of Sir Henry Morgan.
In this group it was clear that the Lieutenant's message was creating some excitement. Bundry, Ellis, and Halliwell appeared to be talking all at once and with some violence of gesture. Monsieur de Bernis remained a little aloof looking on whilst his own fate was being decided. One only attempt he had made to sway the decision, and that was when first Lieutenant Sharples had delivered Morgan's message, demanding de Bernis' own surrender. With some heat he had taken it upon himself to reply, as well he might since he was concerned so closely.
'Go you back to Morgan,' he had said before any of the others had time to speak, 'and tell him that if that's his last word, we can take to the woods and...'
There, however, he had been interrupted by Halliwell. Thrusting him aside almost roughly with his elbow, the corpulent shipmaster had stepped forward.
'Hell!' he had growled. 'There's no sense in that. Morgan can sink the Centaur and riddle the Black Swan until she's just a wreck of timber, leaving us here to rot and maybe starve.'
'Steady! Steady!' Bundry had interposed. 'We're not so easily snuffed. We've timber in plenty and the means and the ability to build.'
'You would be wise to remember that Sir Henry is a determined man,' the Lieutenant had stiffly answered. 'You will not defeat him so easily, as you should know. If you defy him, be sure that he will leave a ship here to harass you, and to see that not one of you departs the island. Your only hope lies in compliance now. Deliver up Leach and de Bernis, and you may find Sir Henry merciful to the rest of you. But those two he will have; and he'll certainly have the rest of you as well, if you attempt to resist him.'
Argument followed. Wogan whiningly supported Sir Henry's envoy. 'Och now, what else can we do but comply? Sure, it's a hateful thing, so it is, to surrender Charley. But when it's either that or surrendering every mother's son of us, what choice have we?'
'And that's the plaguey fact,' Halliwell cordially agreed.
But Bundry, of tougher fibre and further vision, was for resistance. If he could keep de Bernis with them and with their ships unimpaired, even if they lost their guns, they might still try conclusions with the Spanish plate ships. Buccaneers had overcome far heavier odds in their time. So cursing his companions for a pair of spiritless rats, he pleaded that Morgan should remain content with Leach only. Leach they would surrender at once. Ellis, swayed by him, supplemented his arguments. But the Lieutenant remained unmoved. He answered shortly that he had no authority to haggle or parley, that he had delivered his message, and that the rest was their affair. It was in vain that Bundry and Ellis begged him at least to carry their answer to Morgan. Lieutenant Sharples declared it idle. The very lack of unanimity amongst them strengthened his determination. Finally he summoned them to make up their minds without further delay; and threatening to depart and leave them to their fate, he finally broke down their resistance.
Bundry turned his clay-coloured face to de Bernis, thrusting out a lip and shrugging his disgust.
'I've done what I could, Charley. You've heard.'
Monsieur de Bernis was very solemn. 'I've heard. I understand. It is finished, then.' He, too, shrugged. 'The fortune of war.' Himself he lifted over his head the silver-encrusted baldrick that carried his sword, and proffered it to Sharples in token of surrender.
The Lieutenant took it, inclining his head a little in acknowledgement, and handed it to one of his men who stood by the bow of the stranded longboat.
'And now Tom Leach, if you please,' he said, looking round as he spoke, wondering, perhaps, that he had not yet seen that redoubtable pirate, and that he should not have been present at this parley.
'Ah, yes,' said Bundry grimly. 'Tom Leach, to be sure.' He hesitated a moment, his piercing eyes upon the fair young face of the lieutenant. 'Dead or alive was the condition,' he said, between question and assertion.
Lieutenant Sharples stared. 'What? Is he dead already?'
Bundry nodded, turned, and started off up the beach towards the massed buccaneers and what lay behind them, screened by them.
Monsieur de Bernis went after him, caught and held him a moment by the shoulder whilst he murmured something to him. It was something that made that pallid mask momentarily change its set expression. Then, with a grin and a nod, Bundry went on, and de Bernis came slowly back, and at a word from Sharples entered the waiting boat.
Watching ever from the red bulwarks of the Royal Mary, Priscilla saw and understood. A little moan escaped her.
'The cowards! The treacherous cowards!' she cried. 'They have surrendered him. Surrendered him to save their vile skins.'
The Major, careful to betray no satisfaction, answered colourlessly 'Naturally. Could anything else have been expected of them?' He set an arm about her to steady and comfort her as she faltered there, suddenly overcome, her senses swimming.
Tenderly he supported her as far as the main-hatch, and gently lowered her to sit upon the coaming. There, with her elbows on her knees, she took her head in her hands, abandoning herself to silent misery. The Major sat down beside her, and his arm was soothingly placed again about her shoulders. He could go so far as to stifle jealous resentment of this overwhelming grief. But he had no consoling words to offer her.
An officer, pacing by the rail of the quarter-deck, looked down upon them, as did, too, from the other side, some of the hands lounging on the forecastle. But Miss Priscilla heeded nobody and nothing. Grief and horror dazed her senses. It was as if some part of her had been violently wrenched away.
She was aroused at last by the gusty passage of the large gaudy figure of the Admiral, who crossed the waist with elephantine tread, a couple of men following him. As in a dream she remembered having just heard someone say that Sharples was returning. She looked up to see Sir Henry reach the bulwarks and then she heard his brazen voice raised in passion.
'Where the hell's Leach, then? Sharples hasn't got him, after all. Damn him for a fool! Below there, Aldersly. Bid Benjamin stand by with his gun-crew. He'll be needed in a moment. I'll sweep them all to hell! I'll teach the dogs! Do they think they can get gay with Henry Morgan?'
He leaned far over the bulwarks to speak to someone immediately below.
'What the devil's this, Sharples? Where's Tom Leach?'
'A moment, Sir Henry!' sang the Lieutenant's voice from below.
The boat scraped and bumped against the sides of the Royal Mary as it brought up at the foot of the ladder. A pause followed, and then the staring, fearful eyes of Priscilla beheld the figure of Monsieur de Bernis gradually rising above the bulwarks, until he stood there, steadying himself by a ratline, at the head of the entrance-ladder. Calm and smiling, as she had ever known him in the face of every peril, did he now appear. It was incredible that a man should meet his fate so gallantly.
Sir Henry, standing below him and a little aside, looked up to meet the Frenchman's debonair smile with a scowl, whilst the head and shoulders of de Bernis' servant Pierre began to come into view as he climbed close in his master's wake.
'Where the hell is Leach, then?' Sir Henry trumpeted. 'What does this mean?'
Steadying himself ever by the ratline, Monsieur de Bernis half-turned to Pierre, and held out his left hand. The half-caste proffered him a bundle in coarse sailcloth, the natural grey of which was smeared and stained with blood. Monsieur de Bernis took it, balanced it a moment, and then tossed it forward. It fell at Sir Henry's feet, with a soft thud. The Admiral looked down at it, and then up at Monsieur de Bernis, frowning.
'That is all of him you need,' said Monsieur de Bernis. 'All of him you asked for. The head, on which you set the price of five hundred pounds.'
Sir Henry breathed gustily. 'Good God!' His face empurpled. He looked down again at the gruesome bundle from which a stain was slowly spreading on the yellow deck. Then he touched it with a foot that was shod in a gaudily rosetted shoe. He touched it gingerly at first, then kicked it vigorously aside.
'Take that away!' he roared to one of the men who attended him, and upon that gave his attention once more to de Bernis.
'Ye're damned literal, Charles,' he snorted.
De Bernis leapt lightly down to the deck.
'Which is only another way of saying that I am as good as my word. Or as good as my boast, if you prefer it. It needs a thief to catch a thief, as Major Sands there thinks they knew who made you Governor of Jamaica.'
Sir Henry looked across at Major Sands where he had come to his feet in his bewilderment. He stood beside Miss Priscilla, who remained seated staring, scarcely daring to believe what was suddenly being made plain at least in part.
'Oh? Him!' said Sir Henry. 'He thinks that, does he? Bah!' And he shrugged the pompous Major out of his further consideration. 'We've other things to think of. There's a deal here that needs to be explained.'
'You shall have all the explanation you could wish when you've paid me the five hundred for that head, and the other five hundred you wagered me that I could not get it for you.'
Morgan made a wry face. 'Aye. You never doubt yourself, do you, Charles?'
'I've never had occasion to. But I have been doubting you for three mortal days. Three days late you are at the rendezvous here, and for three days I've been in hell from anxiety, and forced to endure that dead dog's intolerable insults. But I paid him in full when you hove in sight this morning. It was necessary, too, so that I might be literal, as you say.'
'We are quits on that, anyway,' grumbled Morgan. 'For ye'ld be in mortal anxiety now but for my stratagem to bring you safely out of their hands. Where would ye be if I hadn't demanded that they should give you up?'
'Where I should deserve to be for trusting to a fool. For only a fool would have overlooked anything so obvious.'
Morgan blew out his cheeks. 'Oddsfish! I've never known the like of your assurance.'
'Don't I justify it? Have I done less than I undertook?'
'Oh, I'll confess to that. Be damned to you. I take it luck favoured you.'
'A little. It saved me the trouble of going after Leach as I intended. He just came blundering across my path whilst I was on my way to Guadeloupe. But it would have made no difference if he hadn't, except that I've saved the Government the expense of fitting a ship in which to go looking for him.'
'Come below,' said Morgan. 'I want to hear about it.'