“Why shouldn’t I tell you? It’s
the same reason that’s been urging me to pick
a quarrel with you so that I might have the satisfaction
of slipping a couple of feet of steel into your vitals.
When I accepted your commission, I was moved to think
it might redeem me in the eyes of Miss Bishop —
for whose sake, as you may have guessed, I took it.
But I have discovered that such a thing is beyond
accomplishment. I should have known it for a
sick man’s dream. I have discovered also
that if she’s choosing you, as I believe she
is, she’s choosing wisely between us, and that’s
why I’ll not have your life risked by keeping
you aboard whilst the message goes by another who
might bungle it. And now perhaps ye’ll
understand.”
Lord Julian stared at him bewildered. His long,
aristocratic face was very pale.
“My God!” he said. “And you
tell me this?”
“I tell you because... Oh, plague on it!
— so that ye may tell her; so that she may be
made to realize that there’s something of the
unfortunate gentleman left under the thief and pirate
she accounts me, and that her own good is my supreme
desire. Knowing that, she may... faith, she
may remember me more kindly — if It’s only
in her prayers. That’s all, my lord.”
Lord Julian continued to look at the buccaneer in
silence. In silence, at last, he held out his
hand; and in silence Blood took it.
“I wonder whether you are right,” said
his lordship, “and whether you are not the better
man.”
“Where she is concerned see that you make sure
that I am right. Good-bye to you.”
Lord Julian wrung his hand in silence, went down the
ladder, and was pulled ashore. From the distance
he waved to Blood, who stood leaning on the bulwarks
watching the receding cock-boat.
The Arabella sailed within the hour, moving lazily
before a sluggish breeze. The fort remained
silent and there was no movement from the fleet to
hinder her departure. Lord Julian had carried
the message effectively, and had added to it his own
personal commands.
WAR
Five miles out at sea from Port Royal, whence the
details of the coast of Jamaica were losing their
sharpness, the Arabella hove to, and the sloop she
had been towing was warped alongside.
Captain Blood escorted his compulsory guest to the
head of the ladder. Colonel Bishop, who for
two hours and more had been in a state of mortal anxiety,
breathed freely at last; and as the tide of his fears
receded, so that of his deep-rooted hate of this audacious
buccaneer resumed its normal flow. But he practised
circumspection. If in his heart he vowed that
once back in Port Royal there was no effort he would
spare, no nerve he would not strain, to bring Peter
Blood to final moorings in Execution Dock, at least
he kept that vow strictly to himself.
