Part 9 (1/2)
”You are not afraid to die, Don Diego?”
The Spaniard threw back his head, a frown between his eyes
”The question is offensive, sir”
”Then let me put it in another way - perhaps more happily: You do not desire to live?”
”Ah, that I can answer I do desire to live; and even more do I desire that my son may live But the desire shall not make a coward of me for your an he had shown of the least heat or resentment
Captain Blood did not directly answer As before he perched hi, sir, to earn life and liberty - for yourself, your son, and the other Spaniards who are on board?”
”To earn it?” said Don Diego, and the watchful blue eyes did not h him ”To earn it, do you say? Why, if the service you would propose is one that cannot hurt uilty of that?” protested the Captain ”I realize that even a pirate has his honour” And forthwith he propounded his offer ”If you will look froo, you will see what appears to be a cloud on the horizon That is the island of Barbados well astern All day we have been sailing east before the ith but one intent - to set as great a distance between Barbados and ourselves as possible But now, alht of land, we are in a difficulty The only ation is fevered, delirious, in fact, as a result of certain ill-treatment he received ashore before we carried him aith us I can handle a shi+p in action, and there are one or two hera way over the trackless wastes of ocean, we know nothing To hug the land, and go blundering about what you so aptly call this pestilent archipelago, is for us to court disaster, as you can perhaps conceive And so it comes to this: We desire to htly as possible Will you pledge me your honour, if I release you upon parole, that you will navigate us thither? If so, ill release you and your surviving o bowed his head upon his breast, and strode away in thought to the stern s There he stood looking out upon the sunlit sea and the dead water in the great shi+p's wake - his shi+p, which these English dogs had wrested fro safely into a port where she would be completely lost to him and refitted perhaps to make war upon his kin That was in one scale; in the other were the lives of sixteen men Fourteen of the tere his own and his son's
He turned at length, and his back being to the light, the Captain could not see how pale his face had grown
”I accept,” he said
CHAPTER XI
FILIAL PIETY
By virtue of the pledge he had given, Don Diego de Espinosa enjoyed the freedoation which he had undertaken was left entirely in his hands And because those who manned her were new to the seas of the Spanish Main, and because even the things that had happened in Bridgetoere not enough to teach the to be slain at sight, they used him with the civility which his own suave urbanity invited He took his reat cabin with Blood and the three officers elected to support hithorpe, Wolverstone, and dyke
They found Don Diego an agreeable, even an a towards him was fostered by his fortitude and brave equani fair it was impossible to suspect Moreover, there was no conceivable reason why he should not And he had been of the utmost frankness with the before the wind upon leaving Barbados They should have left the island to leeward, heading into the Caribbean and away froo As it was, they would now be forced to pass through this archipelago again so as to e was not to be accomplished without some measure of risk to theht come upon an equal or superior craft; whether she were Spanish or English would be equally bad for theht To lessen this risk as far as possible, Don Diego directed at first a southerly and then a westerly course; and so, taking a line o and Grenada, they won safely through the danger-zone and came into the comparative security of the Caribbean Sea
”If this wind holds,” he told theht at supper, after he had announced to them their position, ”we should reach Curacao inside three days”
For three days the wind held, indeed it freshened a little on the second, and yet when the third night descended upon thehing through a sea contained on every side by the blue bowl of heaven Captain Blood uneasily o
”It will be for to-,” he was answered with calm conviction
”By all the saints, it is always 'to-' with you Spaniards; and to-morrow never co, rest assured However early you may be astir, you shall see land ahead, Don Pedro”
Captain Blood passed on, content, and went to visit Jerry Pitt, his patient, to whose condition Don Diego owed his chance of life For twenty-four hours now the fever had left the sufferer, and under Peter Blood's dressings, his lacerated back was beginning to heal satisfactorily So far, indeed, was he recovered that he complained of his confinee him Captain Blood consented that he should take the air on deck, and so, as the last of the daylight was fading from the sky, Jeremy Pitt came forth upon the Captain's ars, the Sos with the cool night air, and professed himself revived thereby Then with the sea vault of heaven, spangled already with a ht Awhile he scanned it idly, vacantly; then, his attention became sharply fixed He looked round and up at Captain Blood, who stood beside hi of astronomy, Peter?” quoth he
”Astronomy, is it? Faith, now, I couldn't tell the Belt of Orion from the Girdle of Venus”
”Ah! And I suppose all the others of this lubberly crew share your ignorance”
”It would be more amiable of you to suppose that they exceed it”
Jereht in the heavens over the starboard bow ”That is the North Star,” said he
”Is it now? Glory be, I wonder ye can pick it out from the rest”
”And the North Star ahead al a course, north, northwest, orrees ard”
”And why shouldn't ondered Captain Blood
”You told o between Tobago and Grenada, steering for Curacao If that were our present course, we should have the North Star abeam, out yonder”
On the instant Mr Blood shed his laziness He stiffened with apprehension, and was about to speak when a shaft of light clove the gloo from the door of the poop cabin which had just been opened It closed again, and presently there was a step on the coers pressed Jerry's shoulder with significance Then he called the Don, and spoke to hilish as had become his custoht dispute for us, Don Diego?” said he lightly ”We are arguing, Mr Pitt and I, as to which is the North Star”
”So?” The Spaniard's tone was easy; there was alhter lurked behind it, and the reason for this was yielded by his next sentence ”But you tell ant?”
”For lack of a better,” laughed the Captain, good-huer hiht that that is the North Star” And he flung out an arht abeao confirh upon that instant Far from that, however, the Spaniard freely expressed his scorn
”You have the assurance that is of ignorance, Don Pedro; and you lose The North Star is this one” And he indicated it
”You are sure?”
”But my dear Don Pedro!” The Spaniard's tone was one of amused protest ”But is it possible that I mistake? Besides, is there not the compass? Come to the binnacle and see there what course we make”
His utter frankness, and the easyto conceal resolved at once the doubt that had leapt so suddenly in the mind of Captain Blood Pitt was satisfied less easily
”In that case, Don Diego, will you tell me, since Curacao is our destination, why our course is what it is?”
Again there was no faintest hesitation on Don Diego's part ”You have reason to ask,” said he, and sighed ”I had hope' it would not be observe' I have been careless - oh, of a carelessness very culpable I neglect observation Always it isAnd so to-day I find when at last I take out the quadrant that we do coree too much south, so that Curacao is now almost due north That is what cause the delay But ill be there to-morrow”
The explanation, so co, left no rooo should have been false to his parole And when presently Don Diego had withdrawn again, Captain Blood confessed to Pitt that it was absurd to have suspected him Whatever his antecedents, he had proved his quality when he announced hi that could hurt his honour or his country
New to the seas of the Spanish Main and to the ways of the adventurers who sailed it, Captain Blood still entertained illusions But the next daas to shatter the on deck before the sun was up, he saw land ahead, as the Spaniard had pro coast-line filling the horizon east and west, with a ht before the at it, he frowned He had not conceived that Curacao was of such considerable dimensions Indeed, this looked less like an island than the entle landward breeze he beheld a great shi+p on their starboard bow, that he conceived to be soe her at that distance - of a tonnage equal if not superior to their own Even as he watched her she altered her course, and going about ca towards them, close-hauled