Part 15 (2/2)
This letter and the state of things which it disclosedthis vexatious problem by ordinary means He turned to the consideration of extraordinary ones, and bethought hian, who had been enlisted into the King's service under Charles II It occurred to hiht be similarly effective with Captain Blood His lordshi+p did not oht well have been undertaken not from inclination, but under stress of sheer necessity; that he had been forced into it by the circumstances of his transportation, and that he would welco upon this conclusion, Sunderland sent out his kinsman, Lord Julian Wade, with some commissions made out in blank, and full directions as to the course which the Secretary considered it desirable to pursue and yet full discretion in thetheue, advised his kins Blood intractable, or judging for other reasons that it was not desirable to enlist hi's service, he should turn his attention to the officers serving under hi them away from him leave him so weakened that he must fall an easy victim to Colonel Bishop's fleet
The Royal Mary - the vessel bearing that ingenious, tolerably accoant envoy of e to St Nicholas, her last port of call before Jamaica It was understood that as a preliminary Lord Julian should report himself to the Deputy-Governor at Port Royal, whence at need he a Now it happened that the Deputy-Governor's niece had come to St Nicholas some months earlier on a visit to soht escape the insufferable heat of Ja now at hand, a passage was sought for her aboard the Royal Mary, and in view of her uncle's rank and position promptly accorded
Lord Julian hailed her advent with satisfaction It gave a voyage that had been full of interest for him just the spice that it required to achieve perfection as an experience His lordshi+p was one of your gallants to whoraced by wonation Miss Arabella Bishop - this straight up and down slip of a girl with her rather boyish voice and her almost boyish ease of land would have co eyes His very sophisticated, carefully educated tastes in such , and the quite helplessly feminine Miss Bishop's charms were undeniable But they were such that it would take a delicate-minded man to appreciate them; and ross, did not possess the necessary degree of delicacy I ainst hi woman and a lady; and in the latitude into which Lord Julian had strayed this was a phenomenon sufficiently rare to command attention On his side, with his title and position, his personal grace and the charm of a practised courtier, he bore about hireat world in which nor - a world that was little more than a name to her, who had spent most of her life in the Antilles It is not therefore wonderful that they should have been attracted to each other before the Royal Mary arped out of St Nicholas Each could tell the other ale her iination with stories of St Janed hiuished part - and she could enrich histhis neorld to which he had coht of St Nicholas they were good friends, and his lordshi+p was beginning to correct his first impressions of her and to discover the charhtforward attitude of comradeshi+p whichhow his mind was obsessed with the business of his mission, it is not wonderful that he should have come to talk to her of Captain Blood Indeed, there was a circumstance that directly led to it
”I wonder now,” he said, as they were sauntering on the poop, ”if you ever saw this fellow Blood, as at one time on your uncle's plantations as a slave”
Miss Bishop halted She leaned upon the taffrail, looking out towards the receding land, and it was a moment before she answered in a steady, level voice: ”I saw him often I knew hihtly moved out of an imperturbability that he had studiously cultivated He was a young ht in stature and appearing taller by virtue of his exceeding leanness He had a thin, pale, rather pleasing hatchet-face, fra, a sensitive mouth and pale blue eyes that lent his countenance a dreamy expression, a rather melancholy pensiveness But they were alert, observant eyes notwithstanding, although they failed on this occasion to observe the slight change of colour which his question had brought to Miss Bishop's cheeks or the suspiciously excessive composure of her answer
”Ye don't say!” he repeated, and came to lean beside her ”And what manner of man did you find hientleman”
”You were acquainted with his story?”
”He told it me That is why I esteemed him - for the calm fortitude hich he bore adversity Since then, considering what he has done, I have almost come to doubt if what he told s he suffered at the hands of the Royal Commission that tried the Monh He was never out with Monmouth; that is certain He was convicted on a point of lahich he norant when he committed as construed into treason But, faith, he's had his revenge, after a fashi+on”
”That,” she said in a s It has destroyed hihed a little ”Be none so sure of that He has grown rich, I hear He has translated, so it is said, his Spanish spoils into French gold, which is being treasured up for hieron, has seen to that”
”His future father-in-law?” said she, and stared at hieron? The Governor of Tortuga?”
”The same You see the felloell protected It's a piece of news I gathered in St Nicholas I am not sure that I welcome it, for I am not sure that it makes any easier a task upon which my kinsman, Lord Sunderland, has sent me hither But there it is You didn't know?”
She shook her head without replying She had averted her face, and her eyes were staring down at the gently heaving water After a moment she spoke, her voice steady and perfectly controlled
”But surely, if this were true, there would have been an end to his piracy by now If he if he loved a woman and was betrothed, and was also rich as you say, surely he would have abandoned this desperate life, and”
”Why, so I thought,” his lordshi+p interrupted, ”until I had the explanation D'Ogeron is avaricious for hiirl, I'm told she's a wild piece, fit mate for such a man as Blood Al with him It would be no new experience for her And I marvel, too, at Blood's patience He killed a man to win her”
”He killed a man for her, do you say?” There was horror now in her voice
”Yes - a French buccaneer nairl's lover and Blood's associate on a venture Blood coveted the girl, and killed Levasseur to win her Pah! It's an unsavoury tale, I own But men live by different codes out in these parts”
She had turned to face hi, as she cut into his apologies for Blood
”They must, indeed, if his other associates allowed hi was done in fair fight, I am told”
”Who told you?”
”A man who sailed with them, a Frenchman named Cahusac, whom I found in a waterside tavern in St Nicholas He was Levasseur's lieutenant, and he was present on the island where the thing happened, and when Levasseur was killed”
”And the girl? Did he say the girl was present, too?”
”Yes She was a witness of the encounter Blood carried her off when he had disposed of his brother-buccaneer”
”And the dead ht the note of incredulity in her voice, but missed the note of relief hich it was blent ”Oh, I don't believe the tale I won't believe it!”
”I honour you for that, Miss Bishop It strained my own belief that men should be so callous, until this Cahusac afforded me the explanation”
”What?” She checked her unbelief, an unbelief that had uplifted her fro round to face his lordshi+p with that question Later he was to remember and perceive in her present behaviour a certain oddness which went disregarded now
”Blood purchased their consent, and his right to carry the girl off He paid them in pearls that orth ht” His lordshi+p laughed again with a touch of contempt ”A handso, venal curs And faith, it's a pretty tale this for a lady's ear”
She looked away froht was blurred After a moment in a voice less steady than before she asked him: ”Why should this Frenchman have told you such a tale? Did he hate this Captain Blood?”
”I did not gather that,” said his lordshi+p slowly ”He related it oh, just as a co ways
”A commonplace!” said she ”My God! A coes under the cloak that civilization fashi+ons for us,” said his lordshi+p ”But this Blood, noas a man of considerable parts, from what else this Cahusac told me He was a bachelor of e”
”And he has seen h this I hardly credit - that he had fought under de Ruyter”
”That also is true,” said she She sighed heavily ”Your Cahusac seeh Alas!”
”You are sorry, then?”
She looked at him She was very pale, he noticed
”As we are sorry to hear of the death of one we have esteeentleman Now”
She checked, and sotten”
And upon that she passed at once to speak of other things The friendshi+p, which it was her great gift to corew steadily between those two in the little ti, until the event befell that e of his lordshi+p's voyage
TheSpanish Admiral, whom they encountered on the second day out, when halfway across the Gulf of Gonaves The Captain of the Royal Mary was not disposed to be inti the Spaniard's plentiful seaboard towering high above the water and offering hilishman was moved to scorn If this Don who flew the banner of Castile wanted a fight, the Royal Mary was just the shi+p to oblige hiallant confidence, and that he would that day have put an end to the wild career of Don Miguel de Espinosa, but that a lucky shot fro some powder stored in his forecastle, and blew up half his shi+p alht had started How the powder caallant Captain himself did not survive to enquire into it
Before the men of the Royal Mary had recovered from their consternation, their captain killed and a third of their nu helplessly in a crippled state, the Spaniards boarded her