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.
