Part 6 (2/2)
”I said he was to have neither meat nor drink until I ordered it”
”Sure, now, I never heard ye”
”You never heard me? How should you have heard me when you weren't here?”
”Then how did ye expect iven?” Mr Blood's tone was positively aggrieved ”All that I kneas that one of your slaves was being murthered by the sun and the flies And I says to myself, this is one of the Colonel's slaves, and I' after the Colonel's property So I just gave the fellow a spoonful of water and covered his back froht?” The Colonel was almost speechless
”Be easy, now, be easy!” Mr Blood iive way to heat like this”
The planter thrust hi forward tore the palmetto leaf from the prisoner's back
”In the na
The Colonel swung upon him furiously ”Out of this!” he coain until I send for you, unless you want to be served in the same way”
He was terrific in his menace, in his bulk, and in the power of him But Mr Blood never flinched It caarded by those light-blue eyes that looked so arrestingly odd in that tawny face - like pale sapphires set in copper - that this rogue had for so presumptuous It was a matter that he ain, his tone quietly insistent
”In the name of humanity,” he repeated, ”ye'll allow s, or I swear to you that I'll forsake at once the duties of a doctor, and that it's devil another patient will I attend in this unhealthy island at all”
For an instant the Colonel was too amazed to speak Then - ”By God!” he roared ”D'ye dare take that tone with ? D'ye dare toblue eyes looked squarely into the Colonel's, and there was a devil peeping out of them, the devil of recklessness that is born of despair
Colonel Bishop considered hi moment in silence ”I've been too soft with you,” he said at last ”But that's to be htened his lips ”I'll have the rods to you, until there's not an inch of skin left on your dirty back”
”Will ye so? And ould Governor Steed do, then?”
”Ye're not the only doctor on the island”
Mr Blood actually laughed ”And will ye tell that to his excellency, hiout in his foot so bad that he can't stand? Ye know very well it's devil another doctor will he tolerate, being an intelligent ood for hihly aroused was not so easily to be baulked ”If you're alive when my blacks have done with you, perhaps you'll coroes to issue an order But it was never issued At thatthunderclap drowned his voice and shook the very air Colonel Bishop juroes jumped with him, and so even did the apparently iether seawards
Down in the bay all that could be seen of the great shi+p, standing noithin a cable's-length of the fort, were her top above a cloud of sht of startled seabirds had risen to circle in the blue, giving tongue to their alarm, the plaintive curlew noisiest of all
As those men stared fro what had taken place, they saw the British Jack dip fro cloud below Aof England soared the gold and crimson banner of Castile And then they understood
”Pirates!” roared the Colonel, and again, ”Pirates!”
Fear and incredulity were blent in his voice He had paled under his tan until his face was the colour of clay, and there was a wild fury in his beady eyes His negroes looked at hi idiotically, all teeth and eyeballs
CHAPTER VIII
SPANIARDS
The stately shi+p that had been allowed to sail so leisurely into Carlisle Bay under her false colours was a Spanish privateer, co to pay off some of the heavy debt piled up by the predaceous Brethren of the Coast, and the recent defeat by the Pride of Devon of two treasure galleons bound for Cadiz It happened that the galleon which escaped in a o de Espinosa y Valdez, n brother to the Spanish Aduel de Espinosa, and as also a very hasty, proud, and hot-te to forget that his own conduct had invited it, he had sworn to teach the English a sharp lesson which they should rean and those other robbers of the sea, and lish settlement Unfortunately for himself and for many others, his brother the Admiral was not at hand to restrain hias at San Juan de Porto Rico He chose for his objective the island of Barbados, whose natural strength was apt to render her defenders careless He chose it also because thither had the Pride of Devon been tracked by his scouts, and he desired a eance And he chose a moment when there were no shi+ps of war at anchor in Carlisle Bay
He had succeeded so well in his intentions that he had aroused no suspicion until he saluted the fort at short range with a broadside of twenty guns
And now the four gaping watchers in the stockade on the headland beheld the great shi+p creep forward under the rising cloud of s way, and go about close-hauled to bring her larboard guns to bear upon the unready fort
With the crashi+ng roar of that second broadside, Colonel Bishop awoke from stupefaction to a recollection of where his duty lay In the town below dru, as if the peril needed further advertising As commander of the Barbados Militia, the place of Colonel Bishop was at the head of his scanty troops, in that fort which the Spanish guns were pounding into rubble
Re it, he went off at the double, despite his bulk and the heat, his negroes trotting after hirimly ”Now that,” said he, ”is what I call a tih what'll coht, ”the devil hi forth, he picked up the palmetto leaf and carefully replaced it on the back of his fellow-slave
And then into the stockade, panting and sweating, came Kent followed by best part of a score of plantation workers, some of ere black and all of ere in a state of panic He led theain, within a ers and some of them equipped with bandoleers
By this ti in, in twos and threes, having abandoned their work upon finding theeneral disuard dashed forth, to fling an order to those slaves
”To the woods!” he bade them ”Take to the woods, and lie close there, until this is over, and we've gutted these Spanish swine”
On that he went off in haste after hisin the town, so as to oppose and overwhel parties
The slaves would have obeyed him on the instant but for Mr Blood
”What need for haste, and in this heat?” quoth he He was surprisingly cool, they thought ”Maybe there'll be no need to take to the woods at all, and, anyway, it will be tih to do so when the Spaniards are masters of the town”
And so, joined now by the other stragglers, and nu in all a round score - rebels-convict all - they stayed to watch froround the fortunes of the furious battle that was being waged below
The landing was contested by thearms with the fierce resoluteness of men who knew that no quarter was to be expected in defeat The ruthlessness of Spanish soldiery was a byword, and not at his worst had Morgan or L'Ollonais ever perpetrated such horrors as those of which these Castilian gentlemen were capable
But this Spanish commander knew his business, which was more than could truthfully be said for the Barbados Militia Having gained the advantage of a surprise blohich had put the fort out of action, he soon showed theuns turned now upon the open space behind the mole, where the incompetent Bishop had s, and covered the landing parties which werethe shore in their own boats and in several of those which had rashly gone out to the great shi+p before her identity was revealed
All through the scorching afternoon the battle went on, the rattle and crack ofever deeper into the town to show that the defenders were being driven steadily back By sunset two hundred and fifty Spaniards were etown, the islanders were disarotten in his panic - supported by Colonel Bishop and soo, with an urbanity that was itself a mockery, of the sum that would be required in ransom