CAPTAIN BLOOD by Rafael Sabatini

CHAPTER XXX
THE LAST FIGHT OF THE ARABELLA
"VHY do you vait, my friend?" growled van der Kuylen.
"Aye - in God's name!" snapped Willoughby.
It was the afternoon of that same day, and the two buccaneer ships
rocked gently with idly flapping sails under the lee of the long
spit of land forming the great natural harbour of Port Royal, and
less than a mile from the straits leading into it, which the fort
commanded. It was two hours and more since they had brought up
thereabouts, having crept thither unobserved by the city and by M.
de Rivarol's ships, and all the time the air had been aquiver with
the roar of guns from sea and land, announcing that battle was
joined between the French and the defenders of Port Royal. That
long, inactive waiting was straining the nerves of both Lord
Willoughby and van der Kuylen.
"You said you vould show us zome vine dings. Vhere are dese vine
dings?"
Blood faced them, smiling confidently. He was arrayed for battle,
in back-and-breast of black steel. "I'll not be trying your
patience much longer. Indeed, I notice already a slackening in
the fire. But it's this way, now: there's nothing at all to be
gained by precipitancy, and a deal to be gained by delaying, as
I shall show you, I hope."
Lord Willoughby eyed him suspiciously. "Ye think that in the
meantime Bishop may come back or Admiral van der Kuylen's fleet
appear?"
"Sure, now, I'm thinking nothing of the kind. What I'm thinking
is that in this engagement with the fort M. de Rivarol, who's a
lubberly fellow, as I've reason to know, will be taking some damage
that may make the odds a trifle more even. Sure, it'll be time
enough to go forward when the fort has shot its bolt."
"Aye, aye!" The sharp approval came like a cough from the little
Governor-General. "I perceive your object, and I believe ye're
entirely right. Ye have the qualities of a great commander, Captain
Blood. I beg your pardon for having misunderstood you."
"And that's very handsome of your lordship. Ye see, I have some
experience of this kind of action, and whilst I'll take any risk
that I must, I'll take none that I needn't. But...." He broke off
to listen. "Aye, I was right. The fire's slackening. It'll mean
the end of Mallard's resistance in the fort. Ho there, Jeremy!"
He leaned on the carved rail and issued orders crisply. The
bo'sun's pipe shrilled out, and in a moment the ship that had
seemed to slumber there, awoke to life. Came the padding of feet
along the decks, the creaking of blocks and the hoisting of sail.
The helm was put over hard, and in a moment they were moving, the
Elizabeth following, ever in obedience to the signals from the
Arabella, whilst Ogle the gunner, whom he had summoned, was
receiving Blood's final instructions before plunging down to his
station on the main deck.
Within a quarter of an hour they had rounded the head, and stood
in to the harbour mouth, within saker shot of Rivarol's three
ships, to which they now abruptly disclosed themselves.
Where the fort had stood they now beheld a smoking rubbish heap,
and the victorious Frenchman with the lily standard trailing
from his mastheads was sweeping forward to snatch the rich prize
whose defences he had shattered.
Blood scanned the French ships, and chuckled. The Victorieuse and
the Medusa appeared to have taken no more than a few scars; but
the third ship, the Baleine, listing heavily to larboard so as
to keep the great gash in her starboard well above water, was
out of account.
"You see!" he cried to van der Kuylen, and without waiting for
the Dutchman's approving grunt, he shouted an order: "Helm,
hard-a-port!"
The sight of that great red ship with her gilt beak-head and open
ports swinging broadside on must have given check to Rivarol's
soaring exultation. Yet before he could move to give an order,
before he could well resolve what order to give, a volcano of
fire and metal burst upon him from the buccaneers, and his decks
were swept by the murderous scythe of the broadside. The Arabella
held to her course, giving place to the Elizabeth, which, following
closely, executed the same manoeuver. And then whilst still the
Frenchmen were confused, panic-stricken by an attack that took them
so utterly by surprise, the Arabella had gone about, and was
returning in her tracks, presenting now her larboard guns, and
loosing her second broadside in the wake of the first. Came yet
another broadside from the Elizabeth and then the Arabella's
trumpeter sent a call across the water, which Hagthorpe perfectly
understood.
"On, now, Jeremy!" cried Blood. "Straight into them before they
recover their wits. Stand by, there! Prepare to board! Hayton
... the grapnels! And pass the word to the gunner in the prow
to fire as fast as he can load."
He discarded his feathered hat, and covered himself with a steel
head-piece, which a negro lad brought him. He meant to lead this
boarding-party in person. Briskly he explained himself to his
two guests. "Boarding is our only chance here. We are too
heavily outgunned."
Of this the fullest demonstration followed quickly. The Frenchmen
having recovered their wits at last, both ships swung broadside on,
and concentrating upon the Arabella as the nearer and heavier and
therefore more immediately dangerous of their two opponents,
volleyed upon her jointly at almost the same moment.
Unlike the buccaneers, who had fired high to cripple their enemies
above decks, the French fifed low to smash the hull of their
assailant. The Arabella rocked and staggered under that terrific
hammering, although Pitt kept her headed towards the French so that
she should offer the narrowest target. For a moment she seemed to
hesitate, then she plunged forward again, her beak-head in splinters,
her forecastle smashed, and a gaping hole forward, that was only
just above the water-line. Indeed, to make her safe from bilging,
Blood ordered a prompt jettisoning of the forward guns, anchors,
and water-casks and whatever else was moveable.
Meanwhile, the Frenchmen going about, gave the like reception to
the Elizabeth. The Arabella, indifferently served by the wind,
pressed forward to come to grips. But before she could accomplish
her object, the Victorieuse had loaded her starboard guns again,
and pounded her advancing enemy with a second broadside at close
quarters. Amid the thunder of cannon, the rending of timbers, and
the screams of maimed men, the half-necked Arabella plunged and
reeled into the cloud of smoke that concealed her prey, and then
from Hayton went up the cry that she was going down by the head.
Blood's heart stood still. And then in that very moment of his
despair, the blue and gold flank of the Victorieuse loomed through
the smoke. But even as he caught that enheartening glimpse he
perceived, too, how sluggish now was their advance, and how with
every second it grew more sluggish. They must sink before they
reached her.
Thus, with an oath, opined the Dutch Admiral, and from Lord
Willoughby there was a word of blame for Blood's seamanship in
having risked all upon this gambler's throw of boarding.
"There was no other chance!" cried Blood, in broken-hearted frenzy.
"If ye say it was desperate and foolhardy, why, so it was; but the
occasion and the means demanded nothing less. I fail within an
ace of victory."
But they had not yet completely failed. Hayton himself, and a
score of sturdy rogues whom his whistle had summoned, were
crouching for shelter amid the wreckage of the forecastle with
grapnels ready. Within seven or eight yards of the Victorieuse,
when their way seemed spent, and their forward deck already awash
under the eyes of the jeering, cheering Frenchmen, those men
leapt up and forward, and hurled their grapnels across the chasm.
Of the four they flung, two reached the Frenchman's decks, and
fastened there. Swift as thought itself, was then the action of
those sturdy, experienced buccaneers. Unhesitatingly all threw
themselves upon the chain of one of those grapnels, neglecting
the other, and heaved upon it with all their might to warp the
ships together. Blood, watching from his own quarter-deck, sent
out his voice in a clarion call:
"Musketeers to the prow!"
The musketeers, at their station at the waist, obeyed him with
the speed of men who know that in obedience is the only hope of
life. Fifty of them dashed forward instantly, and from the ruins
of the forecastle they blazed over the heads of Hayton's men,
mowing down the French soldiers who, unable to dislodge the irons,
firmly held where they had deeply bitten into the timbers of the
Victorieuse, were themselves preparing to fire upon the grapnel
crew.
Starboard to starboard the two ships swung against each other with
a jarring thud. By then Blood was down in the waist, judging and
acting with the hurricane speed the occasion demanded. Sail had
been lowered by slashing away the ropes that held the yards. The
advance guard of boarders, a hundred strong, was ordered to the
poop, and his grapnel-men were posted, and prompt to obey his
command at the very moment of impact. As a result, the foundering
Arabella was literally kept afloat by the half-dozen grapnels that
in an instant moored her firmly to the Victorieuse.
Willoughby and van der Kuylen on the poop had watched in breathless
amazement the speed and precision with which Blood and his desperate
crew had gone to work. And now he came racing up, his bugler
sounding the charge, the main host of the buccaneers following him,
whilst the vanguard, led by the gunner Ogle, who had been driven
from his guns by water in the gun-deck, leapt shouting to the prow
of the Victorieuse, to whose level the high poop of the water-logged
Arabella had sunk. Led now by Blood himself, they launched
themselves upon the French like hounds upon the stag they have
brought to bay. After them went others, until all had gone, and
none but Willoughby and the Dutchman were left to watch the fight
from the quarter-deck of the abandoned Arabella.
For fully half-an-hour that battle raged aboard the Frenchman.
Beginning in the prow, it surged through the forecastle to the waist,
where it reached a climax of fury. The French resisted stubbornly,
and they had the advantage of numbers to encourage them. But for
all their stubborn valour, they ended by being pressed back and back
across the decks that were dangerously canted to starboard by the
pull of the water-logged Arabella. The buccaneers fought with the
desperate fury of men who know that retreat is impossible, for there
was no ship to which they could retreat, and here they must prevail
and make the Victorieuse their own, or perish.
And their own they made her in the end, and at a cost of nearly half
their numbers. Driven to the quarter-deck, the surviving defenders,
urged on by the infuriated Rivarol, maintained awhile their desperate
resistance. But in the end, Rivarol went down with a bullet in his
head, and the French remnant, numbering scarcely a score of whole men,
called for quarter.
Even then the labours of Blood's men were not at an end. The
Elizabeth and the Medusa were tight-locked, and Hagthorpe's
followers were being driven back aboard their own ship for the
second time. Prompt measures were demanded. Whilst Pitt and his
seamen bore their part with the sails, and Ogle went below with a
gun-crew, Blood ordered the grapnels to be loosed at once. Lord
Willoughby and the Admiral were already aboard the Victorieuse.
As they swung off to the rescue of Hagthorpe, Blood, from the
quarter-deck of the conquered vessel, looked his last upon the
ship that had served him so well, the ship that had become to him
almost as a part of himself. A moment she rocked after her release,
then slowly and gradually settled down, the water gurgling and
eddying about her topmasts, all that remained visible to mark the
spot where she had met her death.
As he stood there, above the ghastly shambles in the waist of the
Victorieuse, some one spoke behind him. "I think, Captain Blood,
that it is necessary I should beg your pardon for the second time.
Never before have I seen the impossible made possible by resource
and valour, or victory so gallantly snatched from defeat,"
He turned, and presented to Lord Willoughby a formidable front.
His head-piece was gone, his breastplate dinted, his right sleeve
a rag hanging from his shoulder about a naked arm. He was splashed
from head to foot with blood, and there was blood from a scalp-wound
that he had taken matting his hair and mixing with the grime of
powder on his face to render him unrecognizable.
But from that horrible mask two vivid eyes looked out preternaturally
bright, and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow
through the filth of his cheeks.

CHAPTER XXXI
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR
When the cost of that victory came to be counted, it was found that
of three hundred and twenty buccaneers who had left Cartagena with
Captain Blood, a bare hundred remained sound and whole. The
Elizabeth had suffered so seriously that it was doubtful if she
could ever again be rendered seaworthy, and Hagthorpe, who had so
gallantly commanded her in that last action, was dead. Against this,
on the other side of the account, stood the facts that, with a far
inferior force and by sheer skill and desperate valour, Blood's
buccaneers had saved Jamaica from bombardment and pillage, and they
had captured the fleet of M. de Rivarol, and seized for the benefit
of King William the splendid treasure which she carried.
It was not until the evening of the following day that van der
Kuylen's truant fleet of nine ships came to anchor in the harbour
of Port Royal, and its officers, Dutch and English, were made
acquainted with their Admiral's true opinion of their worth.
Six ships of that fleet were instantly refitted for sea. There
were other West Indian settlements demanding the visit of inspection
of the new Governor-General, and Lord Willoughby was in haste to
sail for the Antilles.
"And meanwhile," he complained to his Admiral, "I am detained here
by the absence of this fool of a Deputy-Governor."
"So?" said van der Kuylen. "But vhy should dad dedam you?"
"That I may break the dog as he deserves, and appoint his successor
in some man gifted with a sense of where his duty lies, and with
the ability to perform it."
"Aha! But id is not necessary you remain for dat. And he vill
require no insdrucshons, dis one. He vill know how to make Port
Royal safe, bedder nor you or me."
"You mean Blood?"
"Of gourse. Could any man be bedder? You haf seen vhad he can do."
"You think so, too, eh? Egad! I had thought of it; and, rip me,
why not? He's a better man than Morgan, and Morgan was made
Governor."
Blood was sent for. He came, spruce and debonair once more, having
exploited the resources of Port Royal so to render himself. He was
a trifle dazzled by the honour proposed to him, when Lord Willoughby
made it known. It was so far beyond anything that he had dreamed,
and he was assailed by doubts of his capacity to undertake so
onerous a charge.
"Damme!" snapped Willoughby, "Should I offer it unless I were
satisfied of your capacity? If that's your only objection...."
"It is not, my lord. I had counted upon going home, so I had.
I am hungry for the green lanes of England." He sighed. "There
will be apple-blossoms in the orchards of Somerset. "
"Apple-blossoms!" His lordship's voice shot up like a rocket, and
cracked on the word. "What the devil...? Apple-blossoms!" He
looked at van der Kuylen.
The Admiral raised his brows and pursed his heavy lips. His eyes
twinkled humourously in his great face.
"So!" he said. "Fery boedical!"
My lord wheeled fiercely upon Captain Blood. "You've a past score
to wipe out, my man!" he admonished him. "You've done something
towards it, I confess; and you've shown your quality in doing it.
That's why I offer you the governorship of Jamaica in His Majesty's
name - because I account you the fittest man for the office that I
have seen."
Blood bowed low. "Your lordship is very good. But...."
"Tchah! There's no 'but' to it. If you want your past forgotten,
and your future assured, this is your chance. And you are not to
treat it lightly on account of apple-blossoms or any other damned
sentimental nonsense. Your duty lies here, at least for as long
as the war lasts. When the war's over, you may get back to Somerset
and cider or your native Ireland and its potheen; but until then
you'll make the best of Jamaica and rum."
Van der Kuylen exploded into laughter. But from Blood the
pleasantry elicited no smile. He remained solemn to the point of
glumness. His thoughts were on Miss Bishop, who was somewhere here
in this very house in which they stood, but whom he had not seen
since his arrival. Had she but shown him some compassion....
And then the rasping voice of Willoughby cut in again, upbraiding
him for his hesitation, pointing out to him his incredible stupi***y
in trifling with such a golden opportunity as this. He stiffened
and bowed.
"My lord, you are in the right. I am a fool. But don't be
accounting me an ingrate as well. If I have hesitated, it is
because there are considerations with which I will not trouble
your lordship."
"Apple-blossoms, I suppose?" sniffed his lordship.
This time Blood laughed, but there was still a lingering wistfulness
in his eyes.
"It shall be as you wish - and very gratefully, let me assure your
lordship. I shall know how to earn His Majesty's approbation. You
may depend upon my loyal service.
"If I didn't, I shouldn't offer you this governorship."
Thus it was settled. Blood's commission was made out and sealed
in the presence of Mallard, the Commandant, and the other officers
of the garrison, who looked on in round-eyed astonishment, but kept
their thoughts to themselves.
"Now ve can aboud our business go," said van der Kuylen.
"We sail to-morrow morning," his lordship announced.
Blood was startled.
"And Colonel Bishop?" he asked.
"He becomes your affair. You are now the Governor. You will deal
with him as you think proper on his return. Hang him from his own
yardarm. He deserves it."
"Isn't the task a trifle invidious?" wondered Blood.
"Very well. I'll leave a letter for him. I hope he'll like it."
Captain Blood took up his duties at once. There was much to be done
to place Port Royal in a proper state of defence, after what had
happened there. He made an inspection of the ruined fort, and
issued instructions for the work upon it, which was to be started
immediately. Next he ordered the careening of the three French
vessels that they might be rendered seaworthy once more. Finally,
with the sanction of Lord Willoughby, he marshalled his buccaneers
and surrendered to them one fifth of the captured treasure, leaving
it to their choice thereafter either to depart or to enrol themselves
in the service of King William,
A score of them elected to remain, and amongst these were Jeremy
Pitt, Ogle, and Dyke, whose outlawry, like Blood's, had come to an
end with the downfall of King James. They were - saving old
Wolverstone, who had been left behind at Cartagena - the only
survivors of that band of rebels-convict who had left Barbados over
three years ago in the Cinco Llagas.
On the following morning, whilst van der Kuylen's fleet was making
finally ready for sea, Blood sat in the spacious whitewashed room
that was the Governor's office, when Major Mallard brought him word
that Bishop's homing squadron was in sight.
"That is very well," said Blood. "I am glad he comes before Lord
Willoughby's departure. The orders, Major, are that you place him
under arrest the moment he steps ashore. Then bring him here to me.
A moment." He wrote a hurried note. "That to Lord Willoughby
aboard Admiral van der Kuylen's flagship."
Major Mallard saluted and departed. Peter Blood sat back in his
chair and stared at the ceiling, frowning. Time moved on. Came
a tap at the door, and an elderly negro slave presented himself.
Would his excellency receive Miss Bishop?
His excellency changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the
negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner
wholly unusual to them. Then quietly he assented.
He rose when she entered, and if he was not as pale as she was, it
was because his tan dissembled it. For a moment there was silence
between them, as they stood looking each at the other. Then she
moved forward, and began at last to speak, haltingly, in an
unsteady voice, amazing in one usually so calm and deliberate.
"I... I... Major Mallard has just told me...."
"Major Mallard exceeded his duty," said Blood, and because of the
effort he made to steady his voice it sounded harsh and unduly loud.
He saw her start, and stop, and instantly made amends. "You alarm
yourself without reason, Miss Bishop. Whatever may lie between me
and your uncle, you may be sure that I shall not follow the example
he has set me. I shall not abuse my position to prosecute a private
vengeance. On the contrary, I shall abuse it to protect him. Lord
Willoughby's recommendation to me is that I shall treat him without
mercy. My own intention is to send him back to his plantation in
Barbados."
She came slowly forward now. "I... I am glad that you will do that.
Glad, above all, for your own sake." She held out her hand to him.
He considered it critically. Then he bowed over it. "I'll not
presume to take it in the hand of a thief and a pirate," said he
bitterly.
"You are no longer that," she said, and strove to smile.
"Yet I owe no thanks to you that I am not," he answered. "I think
there's no more to be said, unless it be to add the assurance that
Lord Julian Wade has also nothing to apprehend from me. That, no
doubt, will be the assurance that your peace of mind requires?"
"For your own sake - yes. But for your own sake only. I would
not have you do anything mean or dishonouring."
"Thief and pirate though I be?"
She clenched her hand, and made a little gesture of despair and
impatience.
"Will you never forgive me those words?"
"I'm finding it a trifle hard, I confess. But what does it matter,
when all is said?"
Her clear hazel eyes considered him a moment wistfully. Then she
put out her hand again.
"I am going, Captain Blood. Since you are so generous to my uncle,
I shall be returning to Barbados with him. We are not like to meet
again - ever. Is it impossible that we should part friends? Once
I wronged you, I know. And I have said that I am sorry. Won't
you... won't you say 'good-bye'?"
He seemed to rouse himself, to shake off a mantle of deliberate
harshness. He took the hand she proffered. Retaining it, he spoke,
his eyes sombrely, wistfully considering her.
"You are returning to Barbados?" he said slowly. "Will Lord Julian
be going with you?"
"Why do you ask me that?" she confronted him quite fearlessly.
"Sure, now, didn't he give you my message, or did he bungle it?"
"No. He didn't bungle it. He gave it me in your own words. It
touched me very deeply. It made me see clearly my error and my
injustice. I owe it to you that I should say this by way of amend.
I judged too harshly where it was a presumption to judge at all."
He was still holding her hand. "And Lord Julian, then?" he asked,
his eyes watching her, bright as sapphires in that copper-coloured
face.
"Lord Julian will no doubt be going home to England. There is
nothing more for him to do out here."
"But didn't he ask you to go with him?"
"He did. I forgive you the impertinence."
A wild hope leapt to life within him.
"And you? Glory be, ye'll not be telling me ye refused to become
my lady, when...."
"Oh! You are insufferable!" She tore her hand free and backed
away from him. "I should not have come. Good-bye!" She was
speeding to the door.
He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes
stabbed him like daggers. "These are pirate's ways, I think!
Release me!"
"Arabella!" he cried on a note of pleading. "Are ye meaning it?
Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again?
Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home
together? Och, ye're crying now! What have I said to make ye
cry, my dear?"
"I... I thought you'd never say it," she mocked him through her
tears.
"Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a...."
"There was never, never anybody but you, Peter."
They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed,
that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor
Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at
last. His odyssey was ended.
And meanwhile Colonel Bishop's fleet had come to anchor, and the
Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled
further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade.
A corporal's guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of
this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the
Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny.
Major Mallard advanced. "Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest
you. Your sword, sir!"
"By order of the Governor of Jamaica," said the elegant little
man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him.
"The Governor? Ye're mad!" He looked from one to the other.
"I am the Governor."
"You were," said the little man dryly. "But we've changed that in
your absence. You're broke for abandoning your post without due
cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had
charge. It's a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find.
Considering that you held your office from the Government of King
James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie
against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye're
hanged or not."
Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: "Who
the devil may you be?" he asked.
"I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty's colonies
in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming."
The remains of Bishop's anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke
into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome
face suddenly white and drawn.
"But, my lord..." began the Colonel.
"Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons," his lordship
interrupted him harshly. "I am on the point of sailing and I have
not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly
by you." He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled,
broken man, allowed himself to be led away.
To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop
expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered.
"This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood," he
said, through his teeth. "My God, what a reckoning there will be
when we meet!"
Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile,
and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor's
house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop's own
residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst
Major Mallard went ahead to announce him.
Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered.
His announcement startled them back to realities.
"You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for
my sake, Peter," she pleaded.
"To be sure I will," said Blood. "But I'm afraid the circumstances
won't."
She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard
fetched the Colonel.
"His excellency the Governor will see you now," said he, and threw
wide the door.
Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting.
At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of
a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a
pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop
made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared
into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica,
which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to
his present undoing.
The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der
Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral's flagship.
"Id is fery boedigal!" he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Cabdain
Blood is fond of boedry - you remember de abble-blossoms. So?
Ha, ha!"