He bowed to them, and turned to depart again, but
mademoiselle detained him.
“Monsieur!” she cried sharply.
He checked and turned, whilst slowly she approached
him, regarding him between dread and wonder.
“Oh, you are noble!”
“I shouldn’t put it as high as that myself,”
said he.
“You are, you are! And it is but right
that you should know all.”
“Madelon!” her brother cried out, to restrain
her.
But she would not be restrained. Her surcharged
heart must overflow in confidence.
“Monsieur, for what befell I am greatly at fault.
This man — this Levasseur....”
He stared, incredulous in his turn. “My
God! Is it possible?
That animal!”
Abruptly she fell on her knees, caught his hand and
kissed it before he could wrench it from her.
“What do you do?” he cried.
“An amende. In my mind I dishonoured you
by deeming you his like, by conceiving your fight
with Levasseur a combat between jackals. On my
knees, monsieur, I implore you to forgive me.”
Captain Blood looked down upon her, and a smile broke
on his lips, irradiating the blue eyes that looked
so oddly light in that tawny face.
“Why, child,” said he, “I might
find it hard to forgive you the stupidity of having
thought otherwise.”
As he handed her to her feet again, he assured himself
that he had behaved rather well in the affair.
Then he sighed. That dubious fame of his that
had spread so quickly across the Caribbean would by
now have reached the ears of Arabella Bishop.
That she would despise him, he could not doubt, deeming
him no better than all the other scoundrels who drove
this villainous buccaneering trade. Therefore
he hoped that some echo of this deed might reach her
also, and be set by her against some of that contempt.
For the whole truth, which he withheld from Mademoiselle
d’Ogeron, was that in venturing his life to
save her, he had been driven by the thought that the
deed must be pleasing in the eyes of Miss Bishop could
she but witness it.
THE TRAP
That affair of Mademoiselle d’Ogeron bore as
its natural fruit an improvement in the already cordial
relations between Captain Blood and the Governor of
Tortuga. At the fine stone house, with its green-jalousied
windows, which M. d’Ogeron had built himself
in a spacious and luxuriant garden to the east of
Cayona, the Captain became a very welcome guest.
M. d’Ogeron was in the Captain’s debt
for more than the twenty thousand pieces of eight which
he had provided for mademoiselle’s ransom; and
shrewd, hard bargain-driver though he might be, the
Frenchman could be generous and understood the sentiment
of gratitude. This he now proved in every possible
way, and under his powerful protection the credit of
Captain Blood among the buccaneers very rapidly reached
its zenith.
