Captain Blood thrust a parchment under Calverley’s
bulging eyes. The officer scanned it, particularly
the seals and signature. He stepped back, a
baffled, impotent man. He bowed helplessly.
“I must return to Colonel Bishop for my orders,”
he informed them.
At that moment a lane was opened in the ranks of the
men, and through this came Miss Bishop followed by
her octoroon woman. Over his shoulder Captain
Blood observed her approach.
“Perhaps, since Colonel Bishop is with you,
you will convey his niece to him. Miss Bishop
was aboard the Royal Mary also, and I rescued her
together with his lordship. She will be able
to acquaint her uncle with the details of that and
of the present state of affairs.”
Swept thus from surprise to surprise, Captain Calverley
could do no more than bow again.
“As for me,” said Lord Julian, with intent
to make Miss Bishop’s departure free from all
interference on the part of the buccaneers, “I
shall remain aboard the Arabella until we reach Port
Royal. My compliments to Colonel Bishop.
Say that I look forward to making his acquaintance
there.”
HOSTILITIES
In the great harbour of Port Royal, spacious enough
to have given moorings to all the ships of all the
navies of the world, the Arabella rode at anchor.
Almost she had the air of a prisoner, for a quarter
of a mile ahead, to starboard, rose the lofty, massive
single round tower of the fort, whilst a couple of
cables’-length astern, and to larboard, rode
the six men-of-war that composed the Jamaica squadron.
Abeam with the Arabella, across the harbour, were
the flat-fronted white buildings of that imposing
city that came down to the very water’s edge.
Behind these the red roofs rose like terraces, marking
the gentle slope upon which the city was built, dominated
here by a turret, there by a spire, and behind these
again a range of green hills with for ultimate background
a sky that was like a dome of polished steel.
On a cane day-bed that had been set for him on the
quarter-deck, sheltered from the dazzling, blistering
sunshine by an improvised awning of brown sailcloth,
lounged Peter Blood, a calf-bound, well-thumbed copy
of Horace’s Odes neglected in his hands.
From immediately below him came the swish of mops
and the gurgle of water in the scuppers, for it was
still early morning, and under the directions of Hayton,
the bo’sun, the swabbers were at work in the
waist and forecastle. Despite the heat and the
stagnant air, one of the toilers found breath to croak
a ribald buccaneering ditty:
“For we laid her board and board,
And we put her to the sword,
And we sank her in the deep blue
sea.
So It’s heigh-ho, and heave-a-ho!
Who’ll sail for the Main with
me?”
Blood fetched a sigh, and the ghost of a smile played
over his lean, sun-tanned face. Then the black
brows came together above the vivid blue eyes, and
thought swiftly closed the door upon his immediate
surroundings.
