From that unpromising beginning matters had not improved; rather had they grown worse.

Blood’s thoughts were upon this and other things as he lounged there on the day-bed.  He had been a fortnight in Port Royal, his ship virtually a unit now in the Jamaica squadron.  And when the news of it reached Tortuga and the buccaneers who awaited his return, the name of Captain Blood, which had stood so high among the Brethren of the Coast, would become a byword, a thing of execration, and before all was done his life might pay forfeit for what would be accounted a treacherous defection.  And for what had he placed himself in this position?  For the sake of a girl who avoided him so persistently and intentionally that he must assume that she still regarded him with aversion.  He had scarcely been vouchsafed a glimpse of her in all this fortnight, although with that in view for his main object he had daily haunted her uncle’s residence, and daily braved the unmasked hostility and baffled rancour in which Colonel Bishop held him.  Nor was that the worst of it.  He was allowed plainly to perceive that it was the graceful, elegant young trifler from St. James’s, Lord Julian Wade, to whom her every moment was devoted.  And what chance had he, a desperate adventurer with a record of outlawry, against such a rival as that, a man of parts, moreover, as he was bound to admit?

You conceive the bitterness of his soul.  He beheld himself to be as the dog in the fable that had dropped the substance to snatch at a delusive shadow.

He sought comfort in a line on the open page before him: 

  “levius fit patientia quicquid corrigere est nefas.”

Sought it, but hardly found it.

A boat that had approached unnoticed from the shore came scraping and bumping against the great red hull of the Arabella, and a raucous voice sent up a hailing shout.  From the ship’s belfry two silvery notes rang clear and sharp, and a moment or two later the bo’sun’s whistle shrilled a long wail.

The sounds disturbed Captain Blood from his disgruntled musings.  He rose, tall, active, and arrestingly elegant in a scarlet, gold-laced coat that advertised his new position, and slipping the slender volume into his pocket, advanced to the carved rail of the quarter-deck, just as Jeremy Pitt was setting foot upon the companion.

“A note for you from the Deputy-Governor,” said the master shortly, as he proffered a folded sheet.

Blood broke the seal, and read.  Pitt, loosely clad in shirt and breeches, leaned against the rail the while and watched him, unmistakable concern imprinted on his fair, frank countenance.

Blood uttered a short laugh, and curled his lip.  “It is a very peremptory summons,” he said, and passed the note to his friend.

The young master’s grey eyes skimmed it.  Thoughtfully he stroked his golden beard.

“You’ll not go?” he said, between question and assertion.