THE DELIVERANCE
I
For a year and more after his escape from Barbados with Peter Blood, it was the abiding sorrow of Nathaniel Hagthorpe, that West Country gentleman whom the force of adversity had made a buccaneer, that his younger brother Tom should still continue in the enslaved captivity from which, himself, he had won free.
Both these brothers had been out with Monmouth, and being taken after Sedgemoor, both had been sentenced to be hanged for their share in that rebellion. Then came the harsh commutation of the sentence which doomed them to slavery in the plantations, and with a shipload of other rebels–convict they had been sent out to Barbados, and there had passed into the possession of the brutal Colonel Bishop. But by the time that Blood had come to organize the escape of himself and his fellows from that island, Tom Hagthorpe was no longer there.
Colonel Sir James Court, who was deputy in Nevis for the Governor of the Leeward Islands, had come on a visit to Bishop in Barbados and had brought with him his young wife. She was a dainty, wilful piece of mischief, too young by far to have mated with so elderly a man, and having been raised by her marriage to a station above that into which she had been born, she was the more insistent upon her ladyhood and of exactions and pretensions at which a duchess might have paused.
Newly arrived in the West Indies, she was resentfully slow to adapt herself to some of the necessities of her environment, and among her pretensions arising out of this was the lack of a white groom to attend her when she rode abroad. It did not seem fitting to her that a person of her rank should be accompanied on those occasions by what she contemptuously termed a greasy blackamoor.
Nevis, however, could offer her no other, fume as she might. Although by far the most important slave–mart in the West Indies, it imported this human merchandise only from Africa. Because of this it had been omitted by the Secretary of State at home from the list of islands to which contingents of the West Country rebels had been shipped. Lady Court had a notion that this might be repaired in the course of that visit to Barbados, and it was Tom Hagthorpe's misfortune that her questing eyes should have alighted admiringly upon his clean–limbed almost stripling grace when she beheld him at work, half naked, among Colonel Bishop's golden sugar–cane. She marked him for her own, and thereafter gave Sir James no peace until he had bought the slave from the planter who owned him. Bishop made no difficulty about the sale. To him one slave was much as another, and there was a delicacy about this particular lad which made him of indifferent value in a plantation and easily replaced.
Whilst the separation from his brother was a grief to Tom, yet at first the brothers were so little conscious of his misfortune that they welcomed this deliverance from the lash of the overseer; and although a gentleman born, yet so abjectly was he fallen that they regarded it as a sort of promotion that he should go to Nevis to be a groom to the Colonel's lady. Therefore Nat Hagthorpe, taking comfort in the assurance of the lad's improved condition, did not grievously bewail his departure from Barbados until after his own escape, when the thought of his brother's continuing slavery was an abiding source of bitterness.
Tom Hagthorpe's confidence that at least he would gain by the change of owners and find himself in less uneasy circumstances seems soon to have proved an illusion. We are without absolute knowledge of how this came about. But what we know of the lady, as will presently be disclosed, justifies a suspicion that she may have exercised in vain the witchery of her long narrow eyes on that comely lad; in short that he played Joseph to her Madam Potiphar, and thereby so enraged her that she refused to have him continue in attendance. He was clumsy she complained, ill–mannered and disposed to insolence.
'I warned you,' said Sir James a little wearily, for her exactions constantly multiplying were growing burdensome, 'that he was born a gentleman, and must naturally resent his degradation. Better to have left him in the plantations.'
'You can send him back to them,' she answered. 'For I've done with the rascal.'
And so, deposed from the office for which he had been acquired, he went to toil again at sugar–cane under overseers no whit less brutal than Bishop's, and was given for associates a gang of gaolbirds, thieves, and sharpers lately shipped from England.
Of this, of course, his brother had no knowledge, or he must have been visited by a deeper dejection on Tom's behalf and a fiercer impatience to see him delivered from captivity. For that was an object constantly before Nat Hagthorpe, and one that he constantly urged upon Peter Blood.
'Will you be patient now?' the Captain would answer him, himself driven to the verge of impatience by this reiteration of an almost impossible demand. 'If Nevis were a Spanish settlement, we could set about it without ceremony. But we haven't come yet to the point of making war on English ships and English lands. That would entirely ruin our prospects.'
'Prospects? What prospects have we?' growled Hagthorpe. 'We're outlawed, or aren't we?'
'Maybe, maybe. But we discriminate by being the enemy of Spain alone. We're not hostis humani generis yet, and until we become that, we need not abandon hope, like others of our kind, that one day this outlawry will be lifted. I'll not be putting that in jeopardy by a landing in force on Nevis, not even to save your brother Nat.'
'Is he to languish there until he dies, then?'
'No, no. I'll find the way. Be sure I'll find it. But we'ld be wise to wait awhile.'
'For what?'
'For Chance. It's a great faith I have in the lady. She's obliged me more than once, so she has; and she'll maybe oblige me again. But she's not a lady you can drive. Just put your faith in her, Nat, as I do.'
And in the end he was shown to be justified of that faith. The Chance upon which he depended came with unexpected suddenness to his assistance, soon after the affair of San Juan de Puerto Rico. The news that Captain Blood had been caught by the Spaniards and had expiated his misdeeds on a gallows on the beach of San Juan had swept like a hurricane across the Caribbean, from Hispaniola to the Main. In every Spanish settlement there was exultation over the hanging of the most formidable agent of restraint upon Spain's fierce predatoriness that had ever sailed the seas. For the same reason there was much secret unavowed regret among the English and French colonists, by whom the buccaneers were, at least tacitly, encouraged.
Before very long it must come to be discovered that the treasure–ships which had sailed from San Juan under the convoy of the flagship of the Admiral of the Ocean–Sea had cast anchor not in Cadiz Bay, but in the harbour of Tortuga, and that it was not the Admiral of the Ocean–Sea, but Captain Blood, himself, who had commanded the flagship at the very time when his body could be seen dangling from that gallows on the beach. But until the discovery came, Captain Blood was concerned, like a wise opportunist, to profit by the authoritative report of his demise. He realized that there was no time to be lost if he would take full advantage of the present relaxation of vigilance throughout New Spain, and so he set out from the buccaneer stronghold of Tortuga on a projected descent upon the Main.
He took the seas in the Arabella, but she bore a broad white stripe painted along her water–line so as to dissemble her red hull, and on her counter the name displayed was now Mary of Modena, so as to supply an ultra–Stuart English antidote to her powerful, shapely Spanish lines. With the white, blue, and red of the Union flag at her maintruck, she put in at St Thomas, ostensibly for wood and water, actually to see what might be picked up. What she picked up was Mr Geoffrey Court, who came to supply the chance for which Nathaniel Hagthorpe had prayed and Captain Blood had confidently waited.
II
Over the emerald water that sparkled in the morning sunlight, in a boat rowed by four moistly gleaming negroes, came Mr Geoffrey Court, a consequential gentleman in a golden periwig and a brave suit of mauve taffetas with silver buttonholes.
Whilst the negroes steadied the boat against the great hull, he climbed the accommodation ladder in the prow, and stepped aboard, fanning himself with his plumed hat, inviting Heaven to rot him if he could support this abominable heat, and peremptorily demanding the master of this pestilential vessel.
The adjective was merely a part of his habitual and limited rhetoric. For the deck on which he stood was scrubbed clean as a trencher; the brass of the scuttle–butts and the swivel–guns on the poop–tail gleamed like polished gold; the muskets in the rack about the mainmast could not have been more orderly or better furbished had this been a King's ship; and all the gear was stowed as daintily as in a lady's chamber.
The men lounging on the forecastle and in the waist, few of them wearing more than a cotton shirt and pair of loose calico drawers, observed the gentleman's arrogance with a mild but undisguised amusement to which he was happily blind.
A negro steward led him by a dark gangway to the main cabin astern, which surprised him by its space and the luxury of its appointments. Here, at a table spread with snowy napery on which crystal and silver sparkled, sat three men, and one of these, spare and commanding of height, very elegant in black and silver, his sunburned hawk face framed in the flowing curls of a black periwig, rose to receive the visitor. The other two, who remained seated, if less imposing were yet of engaging aspect. They were Jeremy Pitt, the ship–master, young and fair and slight of build, and Nathaniel Hagthorpe, older and broader and of a graver countenance.
Our gentleman in mauve lost none of his assurance under the calm survey to which those three pairs of eyes subjected him. His self–sufficiency proclaimed itself in the tone in which he desired to be informed whither the Mary of Modena might be bound. That he supplied a reason for the question seemed on his part a mere condescension.
'My name is Court. Geoffrey Court, to serve you, sir. I am in haste to reach Nevis, where my cousin commands.'
The announcement made something of a sensation upon his audience. It took the breaths of the three men before him, and from Hagthorpe came a gasping 'God save us!' whilst his sudden pallor must have been apparent even with his face in shadow, for he sat with the tall stern windows at his back. Mr Court, however, was too much engrossed in himself to pay heed to changes in the aspect of another. He desired to impress them with his consequence.
'I am cousin to Sir James Court, who is Deputy in Nevis for the Governor of the Leeward Islands. You will have heard of him, of course.'
'Of course,' said Blood.
Hagthorpe's impatience was not content to wait. 'And you want us to carry you to Nevis?' he cried, out of breath, in an eagerness that would have been noticed by any man less obtuse.
'If your course lies anywhere in that direction. It's this way with me: I came out from home, may I perish, on a plaguey half–rotten ship that met foul weather and all but went to pieces under it. Her seams opened under the strain, and she was leaking like a colander when we ran in here for safety. You can see her at anchor yonder. May I rot if she'll ever be fit to take the seas again. The most cursed luck it was to have sailed in such a worm–eaten wash–tub.'
'And you're in haste to get to Nevis?' quoth Blood.
'In desperate haste, may I burn. I've been expected there this month past.'
It was Hagthorpe who answered him in a voice hoarse with emotion. 'Odslife, but you're singularly in luck, sir. For Nevis is our next port of call.'
'Stab me! And is that so?'
There was a grim smile on Blood's dark face. 'It's a strange chance, so it is,' he said. 'We weigh at eight bells, and if this wind holds it's tomorrow morning we'll be dropping anchor at Charlestown.'
'Nothing, then, could be more fortunate. Nothing, may I perish.' The florid countenance was all delight. 'Fate owes me something for the discomforts I have borne. By your leave, I'll fetch my portmantles at once.' Magnificently he added: 'The price of the passage shall be what you will.'
As magnificently Blood waved a graceful hand that was half smothered in a foam of lace. 'That's a matter of no moment at all. Ye'll take a morning whet with us?'
'With all my heart, Captain…'
He paused there, waiting for the name to be supplied to him; but Captain Blood did not appear to heed. He was giving orders to the steward.
Rum and limes and sugar were brought, and over their punch they were reasonably merry, saving Hagthorpe, who was fathoms deep in preoccupation. But no sooner had Mr Court departed than he roused himself to thank Blood for what he supposed had been in his mind when he so readily consented to carry this passenger.
'Didn't I say, now, that if you'ld put your faith in Chance, she'ld be serving us sooner or later? It's not myself ye should be thanking, Nat. It's Fortune. She's just tumbled Mr Court out of her cornucopia into your lap.' He laughed as he mimicked Mr Court: "The price of the passage shall be what you will." What you will, Nat; and I'm thinking it's Sir James Court we'll be asking to pay it.'
III
At the very moment that Mr Geoffrey Court was drinking that morning whet in the cabin of the Arabella, his cousin Sir James, a tall, spare man of fifty, as vigorous still of body as he was irresolute of mind, sat at his breakfast–table with a satchel of letters that had just arrived from England. They were letters long overdue, for the ship that had brought them, delayed and driven out of her course by gales, had exceeded by fully two months the normal time of the voyage.
Sir James had emptied the satchel on to the table, and had spread the contents for a general preliminary glance. A package bulkier than the rest drew his attention, and he took it up. He scanned the superscription with a frown that gradually drew together his heavy, grizzled brows. He hesitated, passing a brown, bony hand along his chin; then, as if abruptly taking a decision, he broke the seals and tore away the wrapper. From this husk he extracted a dainty volume bound in vellum, with some gold tooling on the spine and the legend, also in gold, The Poems of Sir John Suckling.
He sniffed contemptuously, and contemptuously tossed the thing aside. But as it fell, the volume partly opened, and at what he saw his narrow face grew attentive. He took it up again. The fold of vellum on the inner side of the cover had become detached and had slightly curled away from the board. The paste securing that fold had perished, and as he fingered the curled edge the entire flap forming the side of the cover came loose. Between this and the board a folded sheet was now disclosed.
That sheet was still in James' hand ten minutes later, when the room was abruptly invaded by the dainty lady who might have been, in years, his daughter, but was, in fact, his wife. She was scarcely of the middle height and virginally slight of figure, clear–eyed and of a delicate tint unblemished by the climate of the tropics. She was dressed for riding, her face in the shadow of a wide hat, a whip in her hand.
'I have to speak to you,' she announced, her voice musical, but its tone shrewish.
Sir James, sitting with his back to the door, had not turned to see who entered. At the sound of her voice he dropped a napkin over the volume of poems. Then, still without turning, he spoke. 'In that case the King's business may go to the devil.'
'Must you always sneer, sir?' The shrewish note grew sharper. 'Do you transact the King's business at the breakfast–table?'
Always calm, even lethargic, of spirit, Sir James replied: 'Not always. No. But just as often as you must be peremptory.'
'I don't want for cause.' She swept forward and round the table so that she might directly face him. She stood there, very straight, her riding–whip in her gloved hands, held across her slim, vigorous young body. There was a petulance on the sensual lips, an aggressive forward thrust of the little pointed chin.
'I have been insulted,' she announced.
Grey–faced, Sir James considered her. 'To be sure,' he said at last.
'What do you mean — "To be sure"?'
'Doesn't it happen every time that you ride out?'
'And if it does, who shall wonder when yourself you set the example?'
He avoided the offered argument. Argument, at least, was something that he had learnt to refuse this winsome termagant of half his age whom he had married five years ago and who had since poisoned his life with the bad manners and ill–temper brought from her tradesman–father's home.
'Who was it today?' asked his weary voice.
'That dog Hagthorpe. I would to God I had left him rotting in Barbados.'
'Instead of bringing him to rot here. Yes? What did he say to you?'
'Say? You don't conceive he had the effrontery to speak to me?'
He smiled a little sourly. In these days of disillusion he was able to perceive that most of the trouble came from her being too consciously a lady without proper preparation for the role.
'But if he insulted you?'
'It was in the cursed impudent way he looked at me, with a half–smile on his insolent face.'
'A half–smile?' The bushy brows went up. 'It may have been no more than a greeting.'
'You would say that. You would take sides even with your slaves against your wife. Happen what may, I am never in the right. Oh no. Never. A greeting?' she sniffed. 'This was no greeting. And if it was, is a low slave to greet me with smiles?'
'A half–smile, I think you said. And as for low, he may be a slave — poor devil! — but he was born a gentleman.'
'Fine gentleman to be sure! A damned rebel who should have been hanged.'
His deep–set eyes gravely considered her daintiness. 'Are you quite without pity?' he asked her. 'I wonder sometimes. And is there no constancy in you either? You were so taken with the lad when first we saw him in Barbados that nothing would content you until I had bought him so that you might make of him your groom and lavish favours on him only to — '
Her whip crashed down on the table to interrupt him. 'I'll listen to no more of this. It's cowardly always to browbeat and bully me, and put me in the wrong. But I shall know what to do another time. I'll lay my whip across that rogue's smug face. That will teach him to leer at me.'
'It will be worthy,' was the bitter comment. 'It will be brave, towards an unfortunate who must bear whatever comes lest worse should follow.'
But she was no longer listening. The stroke of her whip had scattered some of the letters heaped upon the table. Her attention was sharply diverted.
'Has a packet come from England?' Her breathing seemed to quicken as he watched her.
'I spoke, I think, of the King's business. Here you see it. At the breakfast–table.'
She was already rummaging through the heap, scanning each package in turn. 'Are there letters for me?'
It was a second or two before his suddenly compressed lips parted again to reply evasively: 'I haven't seen all of them yet.'
She continued her search, whilst he watched her from under his brows. At the end she looked at him again.
'Nothing?' she asked, on a note of surprised, aggrieved inquiry. Her brows were knit, her delicate chin seemed to grow more pointed. 'Nothing?'
'You have looked for yourself,' he said.
She turned slowly away, her lip between finger and thumb. He was grimly amused to observe that the furious grievance with which she had sought him was forgotten; that her wrath on the matter of the slave had been quenched in another preoccupation. Slowly she moved to the door, passing out of his range of sight. Her hand upon the knob, she paused. She spoke in a voice that was soft and amiable. 'You have no word from Geoffrey?' He answered without turning. 'I have told you that I have not yet looked through all the letters.'
Still she lingered. 'I did not see his hand on any of them.'
'In that case he has not written to me.'
'Odd!' she said slowly, 'It is very odd. We should have had word by now of when to expect him.'
'I'll not pretend to anxiety for that news.'
'You'll not?' A flush slowly inflamed her face in the pause she made. Then her anger lashed him again. 'And I? You've no thought, of course, for me, chained in this hateful island, with no society but the parson and the commandant and their silly wives. Haven't I sacrificed enough for you that you should grudge me even the rare company of someone from the world, who can give me news of something besides sugar and pepper and the price of blackamoors?' She waited through a silent moment. 'Why don't you answer me?' she shrilled.
He had turned pale under his tan. He swung slowly round in his chair.
'You want an answer, do you?' There was an undertone of thunder in his voice.
Evidently she didn't. For at the mere threat of it she went abruptly out, and slammed the door. He half rose, and she little knew in what peril she stood at that moment from the anger that flamed up in him. Emotion of any kind, however, was short–lived in this lethargic–minded man. An imprecation fluttered from him on a sigh as he sagged back again into his chair. Again unfolding the sheet which his hand had retained during her presence in the room, he resumed his scowling study of it. Then, having sat gloomily in thought for a long while, he rose and went to lock both the letter and the vellum–bound volume in a secretaire that stood between the open windows. After that, at last, he gave his attention to the other packages that awaited him.
IV
Lady Court's yearnings for society from the great world, which were at the root of a good deal of the wretchedness of that household, received some satisfaction on the morrow, when the Mary of Modena reached the island of Nevis — that vast green mountain rising from the sea — and came to cast anchor in Charlestown Bay.
Mr Court, all a quivering eagerness to go ashore, was in the very act of ordering Jacob, the steward, to take up his portmantles, when Captain Blood sauntered into the cabin.
'That will be for tomorrow perhaps,' said he.
'Tomorrow?' Mr Court stared at him. 'But this is Nevis, isn't it?'
'To be sure. This is Nevis. But before we set you ashore there's the trifling matter of the price of your passage.'
'Oh! That!' Mr Court was contemptuous. 'Didn't I say you might make it what you please?'
'You did. And, faith, I may be taking you at your word.'
Mr Court did not like the Captain's smile. He interpreted it in his own fashion.
'If you mean to be — ah — extortionate…'
'Och, not extortionate at all. Most reasonable, to be sure. Sit down, sir, whilst I explain.'
'Explain? Explain what?'
'Sit down, sir.' Blood's tone and manner were compelling. Bewildered, Mr Court sat down.
'It's this way,' said Captain Blood, and sat down also, on the stern locker, with his back to the open window, the sunshine, the glittering sea and the hawkers' boats that with fruit and vegetables and fowls came crowding about the ship. 'It's this way: For the moment I'll trouble you to be considering yourself, in a manner of speaking, a hostage, Mr Court. A hostage for a very good friend of mine, who at this moment is a slave in the hands of your cousin, Sir James. You've told us how highly Sir James esteems and loves you; so there's no cause for uneasiness at all. In short, sir: my friend's freedom is the price I'll be asking Sir James for your passage. That's all.'
'All?' There was fury in Mr Court's tone, in his prominent eyes. 'This is an outrage!'
'I'll not be depriving you of the comfort of calling it that.'
Mr Court set an obvious restraint upon his feelings. 'And supposing that Sir James should refuse?'
'Och, why will you be vexing your soul by supposing anything so unpleasant? The one certain thing at present is that if Sir James consents you'll be landed at once on Nevis.'
'I am asking you, sir, what will happen if he doesn't.'
Captain Blood smiled amiably. 'I'm an orderly man, and so I like to take one thing at a time. Speculation's mostly a waste of thought. We'll leave that until it happens, for the excellent reason that it may never happen at all.'
Mr Court came to his feet in exasperation.
'But this … this is monstrous. Od rot me, sir, you'll do me this violence at your peril.'
'I am Captain Blood,' he was answered, 'so you'll not be supposing that a little peril more or less will daunt me.'
The announcement released some fresh emotions in Mr Court. His eyes threatened to drop from his flushed, angry face.
'You are Captain Blood! Captain Blood! That damned pirate! You may be but, may I perish, I care nothing who you are…'
'Why should you now? All I'm asking of you is that you'll step into your cabin. Of course I shall have to place a guard at the door, but there'll be no other restraints, and your comforts shall not suffer.'
'Do you suppose I'll submit to this?'
'I can put you in irons if you prefer it,' said Captain Blood suavely.
Mr Court, having furiously considered him, decided that he would not prefer it.
Captain Blood was rowed ashore, and took his way to the Deputy–Governor's house on the water–front: a fine white house with green slatted sun–blinds set back in a fair garden where azaleas flamed and all was fragrance of orange and pimento.
He found access to Sir James an easy matter. To a person of his obvious distinction, in his becoming coat of dark–blue camlett, his plumed hat and his long sword slung from a gold–embroidered baldrick, colonial doors were readily opened. He announced himself as Captain Peter, which was scarcely false, and he left it to be supposed that his rank was naval and to be understood that the ship in which he now sailed was his own property. His business in Nevis, the most important slave–market of the West Indies, he declared to be the acquisition of a lad of whom he might make a cabin boy. He had been informed that Sir James, himself, did a little slave–dealing, but even if this information were not correct, he had the presumption to hope that he might deserve Sir James' assistance in his quest.
His person was so elegantly engaging, his manner, perfectly blending deference with dignity, so winning, that Sir James professed himself entirely at Captain Peter's service. Just now there were no slaves available, but at any moment a cargo of blacks from the Coast of Guinea should be arriving, and if Captain Peter were not pressed for a day or two there was no doubt that his need would be supplied. Meanwhile, of course, Captain Peter would stay to dine.
And to dine Captain Peter stayed, meeting Lady Court, whom he impressed so favourably that before dinner was over the invitation extended by her husband had been materially enlarged by her.
Meanwhile, considering the ostensible object of Captain Peter's visit to Nevis, it was natural that the conversation should turn to slaves, and to a comparison of the service to be obtained from them with that afforded by European servants. Sir James, by opining that the white man was so superior as to render any comparison ridiculous, opened the way for the Captain's searching probe.
'And yet all the white men out here as a result of the Monmouth rebellion are being wasted in the plantations. It is odd that no one should ever have thought of employing any of them in some other capacity.'
'They are fit for nothing else,' said her ladyship. 'You can't make ordinary servants of such mutinous material. I know because I tried.'
'Ah! Your ladyship tried. Now that is interesting. But you'll not be telling me that the wretches you so rescued from the plantations were so indifferent to this good fortune as not to give good service?'
Sir James interposed. 'My wife's experience is more limited than her assertion might lead you to suppose. She judges from a single trial.'
She acknowledged the hostile criticism by a disdainful glance, and the Captain came gallantly to her support.
'Ab uno omnes, you know, Sir James. That is often true.' He turned to the lady, who met him smiling. 'What was this single trial? What manner of man was it who proved so lacking in grace?'
'One of those rebels–convict shipped to the plantations. We found him in Barbados, and I bought him to make a groom of him. But he was so little grateful, so little sensible of that betterment of his fortunes that in the end I sent him back to work at sugar–cane.'
The Captain's grave nod approved her. 'Faith, he was rightly served. And what became of him?'
'Just that. He's repenting his bad manners on Sir James' plantation here. A surly, mutinous dog.'
Again Sir James spoke, sadly: 'The poor wretch was a gentleman once, like so many of his misguided fellow–rebels. It was a poor mercy not to have hanged them.'
On that he changed the subject, and Captain Blood having obtained the information that he sought was content to allow him to do so.
But whatever the matter of which they talked, the lady's rare young beauty, combined with a sweet, ingenuous charm of manner, which seemed to bring a twist to the lip of Sir James as he watched her, commanded from their visitor the attentive regard which no man of any gallantry could have withheld. She rewarded him by insisting that whilst he waited in Charlestown he should take up his quarters in their house. She would admit of no refusal. She vowed that all the favour would be of the Captain's bestowing. Too rarely did a distinguished visitor from across the ocean come to relieve the monotony of their life on Nevis.
As a further inducement, she enlarged upon the beauties of this island. She must be the Captain's guide to its scented groves, its luxuriant plantations, its crystal streams, so that he should realize what an earthly Paradise was this which her husband had so often heard her denounce a desolate Hell.
Sir James, without illusions, covering his contempt of her light arts with a mask of grave urbanity, confirmed her invitation, whereupon she announced that she would give orders at once to have a room prepared and the Captain must send aboard for what he needed.
Captain Blood accepted this hospitality in graceful terms and without reluctance. Whilst so much may not have been absolutely necessary for the accomplishment of his purpose in Nevis, yet there could be no doubt that residence in the household of Sir James Court might very materially assist him.
V
We have heard Captain Blood expressing his faith in Fortune, or Chance, as he named it to Hagthorpe. Nevertheless, he did not carry his faith to the lengths of sitting still for Fortune to come seeking him. Chances, he knew, were to be created, or at least attracted, by intelligence and diligence, and betimes on the following morning he was afoot and booted, so as to lose no time in his quest. He knew, from the information gathered yesterday, in what direction it should be pursued, and soon after sunrise he was making his way to Sir James' stables to procure the necessary means.
There could be nothing odd in that a guest of early–rising habits should choose to go for a gallop before breakfast, or that for the purpose he should borrow a mount from his host. The fact that he should elect in his ride to go by way of Sir James' plantation could hardly suggest an interest in one of the slaves at work in it.
So far, then, he could depend upon himself. Beyond that — for sight and perhaps speech of the slave he sought — he put his faith again in Fortune.
At the outset it looked as if Fortune that morning were in no kindly mood. For early though the hour, Lady Court, be it because of matutinal habits, because meticulous in her duty as a hostess, or because of an unconquerable and troublesome susceptibility to such attractiveness in the male as her guest displayed, came fresh and sprightly to take him by surprise in the stables, and to call for a horse so that she might ride with him. It was vexatious, but it did not put him out of countenance. When she joyously announced that she would show him the cascades, he secretly cursed her sprightliness. Very politely he demurred on the ground that his first interest was in the plantations.
She puckered her perfect nose in mock disdain of him. 'I vow, sir, you disappoint me. I conceived you more poetical, more romantical, a man to take joy in beauty, in the wild glories of nature.'
'Why, so I am, I hope. But I'm practical as well; and also something of a student. I can admire the orderliness of man's contriving, and inform myself upon it.'
This led to argument; a very pretty and equally silly battle of words, which Captain Blood, with a definite purpose in view, found monstrous tedious. It ended in a compromise. They rode out first to the cascades, in which she could not spur the Captain into more than languid interest, and then home to breakfast by way of the sugar–plantations, in which no interest could have been more disappointingly keen to her than his. For he wasted time there, and her ladyship was growing sharp–set.
So that he might view at leisure every detail, he proceeded at no more than a walking pace through the broad lanes between the walls of cane that were turning golden, past gangs of slaves, of whom a few were white, who were toiling at the irrigation trenches. From time to time the Captain would try the lady's patience by drawing rein, so that he might look about him more searchingly, and once he paused by an overseer, to question him, first on the subject of the cultivation itself, then on that of the slaves employed, their numbers and quality. He was informed that the white ones were transported convicts.
'Rebel knaves, I suppose,' said the Captain. 'Some of those psalm–singers who were out with the Duke of Monmouth.'
'Nay, sir. We've only one o' they; one as came from Barbados wi' a parcel o' thieves and cozeners. That gang's down yonder, at the end of this brake.'
They rode on and came to the group, a dozen or so half–naked unkempt men, some of them burnt so black by the sun that they looked like pale–coloured negroes, and more than one back a criss–cross of scars from the overseer's lash. It was amongst these that Captain Blood's questing eyes alighted on the man he sought in Nevis.
My lady, who could never long sustain a role of amiable docility, was beginning to manifest her loss of patience at these futilities. That loss was complete when her companion now drew rein yet again, and gave a courteous good morning to the burly overseer of these wretched toilers. Almost at once her annoyance found an outlet. A young man, conspicuous for his athletic frame and sun–bleached golden hair, stood leaning upon his hoe, staring up wide–eyed and open–mouthed at the Captain.
She urged her mare forward.
'Why do you stand idle, oaf? Will you never learn not to stare at your betters? Then here's to improve your manners.'
Viciously her riding–switch cut across his naked shoulders. It was raised again, to repeat the stroke; but the slave, who had half swung round so as fully to face her, parried the blow on his left forearm as it descended, whilst his hand, simultaneously closing upon the switch, wrenched it from her with a jerk that almost pulled her from the saddle.
If the other toilers fell idle, to stare in awe, there was instant action from the watchful overseer. With an oath he sprang for the young slave, uncoiling the thong of his whip.
'Cut the flesh from his bones, Walter!' shrilled the lady.
Before this menace the goaded youth flung away the silver–mounted switch and swung his hoe aloft. His light eyes were blazing. 'Touch me with that whip and I'll beat your brains out.'
The big overseer checked. He knew reckless resolve when he saw it, and here it glared at him plainly. The slave, maddened by pain and injustice, was no more in case to count the cost of doing as he threatened than of having dared to employ the threat. The overseer attempted to dominate him by words and tone, so as to gain time until the frenzy should have passed.
'Put down that hoe, Hagthorpe. Put it down at once.'
But Hagthorpe laughed at him; and then my lady laughed too, on a note that was horrible in its evil, spiteful glee.
'Don't argue with the dog. Pistol him. You've my warrant for it, Walter. I'm witness to his mutiny. Pistol him, man.'
Thus insistently and imperatively ordered, the man carried a hand to the holster of his belt. But even as he drew the weapon, the Captain leaned over from the saddle, and the butt of his heavy riding–crop crashed upon the overseer's hand, sending the pistol flying. The fellow cried out in pain and amazement.
'Be easy now,' said Blood. 'I've saved your life, so I have. For it would have cost you no less if you had fired that pistol.'
'Captain Peter!' It was a cry of indignant, incredulous protest from Lady Court.
He turned to her, and the scorn in his eyes, so vividly blue under their black brows, struck her like a blow.
'What are you? A woman? Od's blood, ma'am, in London Town I've seen poor street–walkers carted that were more womanly.'
She gasped. Then fury rallied her courage to answer him. 'I have a husband, sir, I thank God. You shall answer to him for that.' She drove a vicious spur into her horse, and departed at the gallop, leaving him to follow as he listed.
'Sure and I'll answer to all the husbands in the world,' he called after her, and laughed.
Then he beckoned Hagthorpe forward. 'Here, my lad. You'll come and answer with me. I am going to see justice done, and I know better than to leave you at the mercy of an overseer while I'm about it. Take hold of my stirrup–leather. You're coming with me to Sir James. Stand back there, my man, or I'll ride you down. It's to your master I'll be accounting for my actions, not to you.'
Still nursing his hand, the overseer, his face sullen, fell aside before that threat, and Captain Blood moved on at an easy pace down the golden lane with Tom Hagthorpe striding beside him clinging to his stirrup–leather. Out of earshot the young man hoarsely asked a question.
'Peter, by what miracle do you happen here?'
'Miracle, is it? Now didn't ye suppose that sooner or later one or another of us would be coming to look for you?' He laughed. 'I've not only had the luck to find you. That sweet, womanly creature has supplied a pretext for my interest in you. It makes things easy. And, anyway, easy or difficult, by my soul, I'm not leaving Nevis without you.'
VI
In the hall of the Deputy–Governor's house, when they came to it, Captain Blood left the lad to wait for him, whilst, guided by my lady's strident scolding voice, he strode to the dining–room. There he found Sir James seated, cold and sneering, before a neglected breakfast and her ladyship pacing the room as she railed. The opening of the door momentarily checked her. Then with heaving breast and eyes that flamed in a white face she exploded at the intruder.
'You have the effrontery to present yourself?'
'I thought that I might be expected.'
'Expected? Ha!'
He bowed a little. 'I'm far from wishing to intrude. But I supposed that some explanation might be desired of me.'
'Some explanation indeed!'
'And it's not in my sensitive heart to disappoint a lady.'
'A while ago you had another name for me.'
'A while ago you deserved another.'
Sir James rapped the table. His dignity both as Deputy–Governor and as husband demanded, he conceived, this intervention. 'Sir!' His tone was a reproof. Peremptorily he added: 'A plain tale, if you please.'
'Faith, I'll make it plainer than may please you, Sir James. I'll not be mincing words at all.' And forth came a scrupulous account of the events, in the course of rendering which he was more than once compelled to overbear her ladyship's interruptions.
At the end her husband looked at her where she stood fuming, and there was no sympathy in his glance. It was cold and hard and laden with dislike. 'Captain Peter supplies what the tale lacked to make it hang together.'
'It should suffice at least to show you that satisfaction is required, unless you're a poltroon.'
Whilst the Deputy–Governor was wincing at the insult, Captain Blood was making haste to interpose.
'Sir James, I am at your service for satisfaction of whatever sort you choose. But first, for my own satisfaction, let me say that if under the spur of emotions which I trust you will account humane, I have done aught that is offensive, my apologies are freely offered.'
Sir James remained singularly cold and stern. 'You have done little good, and perhaps a deal of harm, by your intervention. This wretched slave, encouraged to mutiny by your action, cannot be suffered to escape the consequences. There would be an end to order and discipline in the plantation if his conduct were overlooked. You perceive that?'
'Does it matter what he perceives?' railed the lady
'What I perceive is that if I had not intervened this man would have been shot on the spot by her ladyship's orders, and this because innocent of all offence he resisted the threat — again by her ladyship's orders — of having the flesh cut from his bones. Those were her gentle words.'
'It is certainly what will happen to him now,' she spitefully announced. 'That is, unless Sir James prefers to hang him.'
'As a scapegoat for me, because I intervened?' demanded the Captain of Sir James, and Sir James, stung by the sneer, made haste to answer: 'No, no. For threatening the overseer.'
This brought down upon him a fresh attack from her ladyship.
'His insolence to me, of course, is of no account. Nor, it seems, is this gentleman's.'
Between the two of them, Sir James was in danger of losing his stern habitual calm. He slapped the table so that the dishes rattled.
'One thing at a time, madam, if you please. The situation is nasty enough, God knows. I've warned you more than once against venting your spleen upon this fellow Hagthorpe. Now you force me to choose between flogging him for an insubordination that I cannot regard as other than fully provoked, and imperilling all discipline among the slaves. Since I cannot afford that, I have to thank your tantrums, madam, for compelling me to be inhuman.'
'Whilst I have none but myself to thank for having mated with a fool.'
'That, madam, is a matter we may presently have occasion to argue,' said he, and there was something so mysteriously minatory in his tone that her astonishment deprived her pertness of an answer.
Softly Blood's voice cut into the pause. 'I might be able, Sir James, to lift you from the horns of this dilemma.' And he went on to explain himself. 'You'll remember that it was to buy a cabin–boy I landed here. I had thought of a negro; but this Hagthorpe seems a likely lad. Sell him to me, and I'll take him off your hands.'
The elderly man considered a moment, and his gloom was seen to lighten a little. 'Egad! It's a solution.'
'You have but to name your price, then, Sir James.'
But her ladyship was there with her spite to close that easy exit.
'What next? The man's a rebel–convict, doomed for life to service in the plantations. You have a clear duty. You dare not be a party to his leaving the West Indies.'
In the troubled hesitation of that irresolute man, Blood saw that all was not yet done, as he had hoped. Cursing the spite of the lovely termagant, he advanced to the foot of the table, and, folding his arms on the tall back of the chair that stood there, he looked grimly from one to other of them.
'Well, well!' said he. 'And so this unfortunate lad is to be flogged.'
'He's to be hanged,' her ladyship corrected.
'No, no,' Sir James protested. 'A flogging will suffice.'
'I see that I can do no more,' said Blood, and his manner became ironically smooth. 'So I'll take my leave. But before I go, Sir James, there's something I'd almost forgot. I found a cousin of yours at St Thomas who was in haste to get to Nevis.'
He intended to surprise them; and he succeeded; but their surprise was no greater than his own at the abrupt and utter change of manner his announcement produced in her ladyship.
'Geoffrey!' she cried, a catch in her voice. 'Do you mean Geoffrey Court?'
'That is his name. Geoffrey Court.'
'And he's at St Thomas, you say?' Again it was her ladyship who questioned him, the change in her manner growing more ludicrously marked. There was a change too in the aspect of Sir James. He was observing his wife from under his bushy eyebrows, the ghost of a sneer on his thin lips.
'No, no,' Blood corrected. 'Mr Court is here. Aboard my ship. I gave him passage from St Thomas.'
'Then…' She paused. She was out of breath, and her brows were knit in a puzzled frown. 'Then why has he not landed?'
'I'm disposed to think it's by a dispensation of Providence. Just as it was by a dispensation of Providence that he requested a passage of me. All that need matter to you, Sir James, is that he's still aboard.'
'But is he ill, then?' cried my lady
'As healthy as a fish, ma'am. But he may not so continue. Aboard that ship, Sir James, I am as absolute as you are here ashore.'
It was impossible to misunderstand him. Taken aback, they stared at him a moment, then her ladyship, panting and quavering, exploded.
'There are laws to restrain you, I suppose.'
'No laws at all, ma'am. You have only half my name. I am Captain Peter, yes. Captain Peter Blood.' It had become necessary to disclose himself if his threat was to carry weight. He smiled upon their silent stupefaction. 'Perhaps you'll be seeing the need, for the sake of Cousin Geoffrey, of being more humane in the matter of this unfortunate slave. For I give you my word that whatever you do to young Hagthorpe that same will I do to Mr Geoffrey Court.'
Sir James actually and incomprehensibly laughed, whilst her ladyship gaped in terror for a moment before bracing herself to deal practically with the situation.
'Before you can do anything you'll have to reach your ship again, and you'll never leave Charlestown until Mr Court is safely ashore. You'd forgot to…'
'Och, I've forgotten nothing,' he interrupted, with a wave of the hand. 'You're not to suppose that I'm the man to walk into a gin without taking precautions to see that it can't be sprung on me. The Mary of Modena carries forty guns in her flanks, all of them demi–cannons. Two of her broadsides will make of Charlestown just a heap of rubble. And it's what'll happen if they have no word of me aboard before eight bells is made. You'll come away from that bell–pull, my lady, if you're prudent.'
She came away white and trembling, whilst Sir James, grey–faced, but still with that suggestion of a sneering smile about his lips, looked up at Captain Blood.
'You play the highwayman, sir. You put a pistol to our heads.'
'No pistol at all. Just forty demi–cannons, and every one of them loaded.'
But for all his bravado Captain Blood fully realized that in the pass to which things were come he might yet have to pistol Sir James so as to win free. He would deplore the necessity; but he was prepared for it. What he was not prepared for was the Deputy–Governor's abrupt and easy acquiescence.
'That simplifies the issue, which is, I think, that whatever I do to Hagthorpe you will do to my cousin.'
'That is the issue exactly.'
'Then if I were to hang Hagthorpe…'
'There would be a yard–arm for your cousin.'
'Only one decision, of course, is possible.'
Her ladyship's gasp of relief from her mounting fears was clearly audible. 'You prevail, sir,' she cried. 'We must let Hagthorpe go.'
'On the contrary,' said Sir James. 'I must hang him.'
'You must…' She choked as she stared at him, open–mouthed, the horror back again in her wide blue eyes.
'I have a clear duty, madam, as you reminded me. As you said, I dare not be a party to Hagthorpe's leaving the plantations. He must hang. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum. I think that's how it runs. What happens afterwards will not be on my conscience.'
'Not on your conscience!' She was distraught. 'But Geoffrey!' She wrung her hands. 'Geoffrey!' Her tone had become a wail. Then, rallying, she turned in fury on her husband. 'You're mad. Mad! You can't do this. You can't. Hagthorpe must go. What does he matter, after all? What's a slave more or less? In God's name, let him go.'
'And my duty, then? My clear duty?'
His sternness broke her spirit. 'Oh God!' She flung herself on her knees beside his chair, clawing his arm in her anguish.
He cast her off and answered her with a laugh that in its contemptuous mockery was horrible to hear.
Afterwards Captain Blood boasted, perhaps unduly that it was this cruel amusement at the woman's panic that brought light to a situation full of mystery, explained the ready acceptance of it by Sir James, and made plain much else that had been puzzling.
Having laughed his wicked fill, the Deputy–Governor rose, and waved a hand in dismissal of the Captain. 'The matter's settled, then. You'll desire to return to your ship, and I'll not detain you. Yet, stay. You might take a message to my cousin.' He went to unlock the secretaire that stood between the windows. Thence he took a copy of The Poems of Sir John Suckling on one of the sides of which the vellum curled away from the board. 'Condole with him on my behalf, and restore him this. I was waiting for him, to hand it to him myself. But it will be much better this way. Assure him from me that the letter it contained, almost as poetical as the volume itself, has now been faithfully delivered.' And to her ladyship he held out a folded sheet. 'It is for you, ma'am. Take it.' She shrank in fear. 'Take it,' he insisted, and flung it at her. 'We will discuss its contents presently. Meanwhile, it will help you to understand my strict regard for that clear duty of which you reminded me.'
Crouching where he had left her beside his empty chair, her shaking fingers unfolded the sheet. She lowered her eyes to the writing; then, after a moment, with a whimpering sound, let the sheet fall.
Captain Blood was taking in his hands the volume that Sir James had proffered. It was now, I think, that full understanding came to him, and for a moment he was in a dilemma. If the unexpected had helped him at the commencement, the unexpected had certainly come to thwart him now, when in sight of the end.
'I'll wish you a very good day, sir,' said Sir James. 'There is nothing to detain you longer.'
'You're in a mistake, Sir James. There's just one thing. I've changed my mind. I may have done many things in my time for which I should take shame. But I've never yet been anyone's hangman, and I'll be damned if I fill that office in your service. I was quite ready to hang this cousin of yours as an act of reprisal. But I'm damned if I'll hang him to oblige you. I'll send him ashore, Sir James, so that you may hang him yourself.'
The sudden dismay in Sir James' face was no more than Captain Blood expected. Having thus wrecked that sweet plan of vengeance, the Captain went on to show where consolation lay.
'If now that I've changed my mind you were to change yours, and sell me this lad to be my cabin–boy, I'ld not only carry your cousin away with me, but I think I could induce him not to trouble you again.'
Sir James' deep–set eyes questioningly searched the face of the buccaneer.
Captain Blood smiled. 'It's entirely a friendly proposal, Sir James,' he said, and the assurance bore conviction to the troubled mind of the Deputy–Governor.
'Very well,' he said at last. 'You may take the lad. On those terms I make you a gift of him.'
VII
Realizing that husband and wife would be having a good deal to say to each other, and that to linger at such a time would be intrusive, Captain Blood took an immediate tactful leave, and departed.
In the hall he summoned the waiting Tom Hagthorpe to accompany him, and the lad, understanding nothing of this amazing deliverance, went with him.
None hindering them, they hired a boat at the mole, and so came to the Mary of Modena, in the waist of which the two brothers, reunited, fell into each other's arms, whilst Captain Blood looked on with all the sense of being a beneficent deity.
On the verge of tears, Nat demanded to know by what arts Peter Blood had accomplished this deliverance so speedily and without violence.
'I'll not be saying there was no violence,' said Blood. 'There was, in fact, a deal of it. But it was violence of the emotions. And there's some more of the same kind to be borne yet. But that's for Mr Court.' He turned to the bo'sun who was standing by. 'Pipe the hands to quarters, Jake. We weigh at once.'
He went off to the cabin to which Mr Court was confined. He dismissed the guard posted at the door, and unlocked it. A very furious gentleman greeted him.
'How much longer do you keep me here, you damned scoundrel?'
'And where would you be going now?' wondered Captain Blood.
'Where would I be going? D'ye mock me, you cursed pirate? I'm going ashore, as you well know.'
'Do I, now? I wonder.'
'D'ye mean still to prevent me?'
'Faith, there may not be the need. I have a message for you from Sir James: a message and a book of poetry.'
Faithfully he delivered both. Mr Court changed colour, went limp, and sat down suddenly on a locker.
'Perhaps you'll be less eager now to land on Nevis. It may begin to occur to you that the West Indies are not the healthiest region for dalliance. Jealousy in the tropics can be like the climate — mighty hot and fierce. You'll wisely prefer, I should think, to find a ship somewhere that will carry you safely home to England.'
Mr Court wiped the perspiration from his brow
'Then you're not putting me ashore?'
The thudding of the capstan and the rattle of the anchor chain reached them through the open port of the cabin. Captain Blood's gesture drew attention to the sound.
'We are weighing now. We shall be at sea in half–an–hour.'
'Perhaps it's as well,' Mr Court resignedly admitted.