end to Captain Blood and to every mother’s son of us all.  So I goes to him, and ’accept this poxy commission,’ says I; ‘turn King’s man and save your neck and ours.’  He took me at my word, and the London pimp gave him the King’s commission on the spot, and Bishop all but choked hisself with rage when he was told of it.  But happened it had, and he was forced to swallow it.  We were King’s men all, and so into Port Royal we sailed along o’ Bishop.  But Bishop didn’t trust us.  He knew too much.  But for his lordship, the fellow from London, he’d ha’ hanged the Captain, King’s commission and all.  Blood would ha’ slipped out o’ Port Royal again that same night.  But that hound Bishop had passed the word, and the fort kept a sharp lookout.  In the end, though it took a fortnight, Blood bubbled him.  He sent me and most o’ the men off in a frigate that I bought for the voyage.  His game — as he’d secretly told me — was to follow and give chase.  Whether that’s the game he played or not I can’t tell ye; but here he is afore me as I’d expected he would be.”

There was a great historian lost in Wolverstone.  He had the right imagination that knows just how far it is safe to stray from the truth and just how far to colour it so as to change its shape for his own purposes.

Having delivered himself of his decoction of fact and falsehood, and thereby added one more to the exploits of Peter Blood, he enquired where the Captain might be found.  Being informed that he kept his ship, Wolverstone stepped into a boat and went aboard, to report himself, as he put it.

In the great cabin of the Arabella he found Peter Blood alone and very far gone in drink — a condition in which no man ever before remembered to have seen him.  As Wolverstone came in, the Captain raised bloodshot eyes to consider him.  A moment they sharpened in their gaze as he brought his visitor into focus.  Then he laughed, a loose, idiot laugh, that yet somehow was half a sneer.

“Ah!  The Old Wolf!” said he.  “Got here at last, eh?  And whatcher gonnerdo wi’ me, eh?” He hiccoughed resoundingly, and sagged back loosely in his chair.

Old Wolverstone stared at him in sombre silence.  He had looked with untroubled eye upon many a hell of devilment in his time, but the sight of Captain Blood in this condition filled him with sudden grief.  To express it he loosed an oath.  It was his only expression for emotion of all kinds.  Then he rolled forward, and dropped into a chair at the table, facing the Captain.

“My God, Peter, what’s this?”

“Rum,” said Peter.  “Rum, from Jamaica.”  He pushed bottle and glass towards Wolverstone.

Wolverstone disregarded them.

“I’m asking you what ails you?” he bawled.

“Rum,” said Captain Blood again, and smiled.  “Jus’ rum.  I answer all your queshons.  Why donjerr answer mine?  Whatcher gonerdo wi’ me?”

“I’ve done it,” said Wolverstone.  “Thank God, ye had the sense to hold your tongue till I came.  Are ye sober enough to understand me?”