HOSTAGES
Peter Blood stood in the pillared portico of Government
House, and with unseeing eyes that were laden with
pain and anger, stared out across the great harbour
of Port Royal to the green hills rising from the farther
shore and the ridge of the Blue Mountains beyond,
showing hazily through the quivering heat.
He was aroused by the return of the negro who had
gone to announce him, and following now this slave,
he made his way through the house to the wide piazza
behind it, in whose shade Colonel Bishop and my Lord
Julian Wade took what little air there was.
“So ye’ve come,” the Deputy-Governor
hailed him, and followed the greeting by a series
of grunts of vague but apparently ill-humoured import.
He did not trouble to rise, not even when Lord Julian,
obeying the instincts of finer breeding, set him the
example. From under scowling brows the wealthy
Barbados planter considered his sometime slave, who,
hat in hand, leaning lightly upon his long beribboned
cane, revealed nothing in his countenance of the anger
which was being steadily nourished by this cavalier
reception.
At last, with scowling brow and in self-sufficient
tones, Colonel Bishop delivered himself.
“I have sent for you, Captain Blood, because
of certain news that has just reached me. I
am informed that yesterday evening a frigate left
the harbour having on board your associate Wolverstone
and a hundred men of the hundred and fifty that were
serving under you. His lordship and I shall be
glad to have your explanation of how you came to permit
that departure.”
“Permit?” quoth Blood. “I
ordered it.”
The answer left Bishop speechless for a moment.
Then:
“You ordered it?” he said in accents of
unbelief, whilst Lord Julian raised his eyebrows.
“’Swounds! Perhaps you’ll
explain yourself? Whither has Wolverstone gone?”
“To Tortuga. He’s gone with a message
to the officers commanding the other four ships of
the fleet that is awaiting me there, telling them
what’s happened and why they are no longer to
expect me.”
Bishop’s great face seemed to swell and its
high colour to deepen. He swung to Lord Julian.
“You hear that, my lord? Deliberately
he has let Wolverstone loose upon the seas again —
Wolverstone, the worst of all that gang of pirates
after himself. I hope your lordship begins at
last to perceive the folly of granting the King’s
commission to such a man as this against all my counsels.
Why, this thing is... it’s just mutiny... treason!
By God! It’s matter for a court-martial.”
“Will you cease your blather of mutiny and treason
and courts-martial?” Blood put on his hat,
and sat down unbidden. “I have sent Wolverstone
to inform Hagthorpe and Christian and Yberville and
the rest of my lads that they’ve one clear month
in which to follow my example, quit piracy, and get
back to their boucans or their logwood, or else sail
out of the Caribbean Sea. That’s what I’ve
done.”
