Part 17 (1/2)
Blood asked the question wearily, his s ”I do not nuand reverberating there
But Lord Julian would not be denied He caught him by the sleeve with one hand, whilst with the other he pointed after the retreating, dejected figure of Don Miguel
”Do I understand that ye're not going to hang that Spanish scoundrel?”
”What for should I be hanging him?”
”Because he's just a damned pirate, as I can prove, as I have proved already”
”Ah!” said Blood, and Lord Julian ardness of a countenance that had been so devil-may-care but a few moments since ”I am a damned pirate, oes free”
Lord Julian gasped ”After what I've told you that he has done? After his sinking of the Royal Mary? After his treatnantly
”I aland, or of any nation, sir And I a may suffer”
His lordshi+p recoiled before the furious glance that blazed at hiard face But the passion faded as swiftly as it had arisen It was in a level voice that the Captain added: ”If you'll escort Miss Bishop aboardthat you'll make haste We are about to scuttle this hulk”
He turned slowly to depart But again Lord Julian interposed Containing his indignant amazement, his lordshi+p delivered himself coldly ”Captain Blood, you disappoint s for you”
”Go to the devil,” said Captain Blood, turning on his heel, and so departed
CHAPTER XX
THIEF AND PIRATE
Captain Blood paced the poop of his shi+p alone in the tepid dusk, and the growing golden radiance of the great poop lantern in which a seahted the three lans of the day's battle had been effaced, the decks had been swabbed, and order was restored above and below A group of , their hardened natures softened, perhaps, by the calht They were the ht bells which was imminent
Captain Blood did not hear the save the echo of those cruel words which had dubbed him thief and pirate
Thief and pirate!
It is an odd fact of hue that a certain thing must be of a certain fashi+on, and yet be shocked to discover through his own senses that the fact is in perfect hara he had been urged upon the adventurer's course which he had followed ever since, he had known in what opinion Arabella Bishop must hold him if he succumbed Only the conviction that already she was for ever lost to hi a certain desperate recklessness into his soul had supplied the final impulse to drive him upon his rover's course
That he should ever ain had not entered his calculations, had found no place in his dreams They were, he conceived, irrevocably and for ever parted Yet, in spite of this, in spite even of the persuasion that to her this reflection that was his torht of her ever before hi He had used it as a curb not only upon himself, but also upon those who followed hiidly held in hand, never had they been so firmly restrained, never so debarred from the excesses of rapine and lust that were usual in their kind as those who sailed with Captain Blood It was, you will remember, stipulated in their articles that in these as in other matters they must subular good fortune which had attended his leadershi+p, he had been able to impose that stern condition of a discipline unknown before ah at him now if he were to tell theirl of whom he had fallen rohter swell if he added that this girl had that day infor her acquaintance
Thief and pirate!
How the words clung, how they stung and burnt his brain!
It did not occur to his of the feminine mind, that the fact that she should bestow upon him those epithets in the verywas in itself curious He did not perceive the probleht have concluded that if in aher froratitude, yet she expressed herself in bitterness, it ratitude and deep-seated She had beenof the course he had taken Why? It hat he did not ask hihten his dark, his utterly evil despondency Surely she would never have been so moved had she not cared - had she not felt that in what he did there was a personal wrong to herself Surely, heshort of this could have ree of bitterness and scorn as that which she had displayed
That is how you will reason Not so, however, reasoned Captain Blood Indeed, that night he reasoned not at all His soul was given up to conflict between the almost sacred love he had borne her in all these years and the evil passion which she had noakened in hi uishable And the extreht so confused in the soul of Captain Blood that in their fusion they made up a monstrous passion
Thief and pirate!
That hat she dees he had suffered, the desperate case in which he found himself after his escape froone to make hi with hands as clean as were possible to a s had also not occurred to her as a charitable thought hich to ment of a man she had once esteemed She had no charity for him, no mercy She had summed him up, convicted him and sentenced him in that one phrase He was thief and pirate in her eyes; nothingless What, then, was she? What are those who have no charity? he asked the stars
Well, as she had shaped him hitherto, so let her shape him now Thief and pirate she had branded him She should be justified Thief and pirate should he prove henceforth; no more nor less; as bowelless, as remorseless, as all those others who had deserved those naht to steer a course; put an end to this idiotic struggle to make the best of torlds She had shown hied Let him now justify her She was aboard his shi+p, in his power, and he desired her
He laughed softly, jeeringly, as he leaned on the taffrail, looking down at the phosphorescent gleahter startled him by its evil note He checked suddenly, and shi+vered A sob broke from him to end that ribald burst of mirth He took his face in his hands and found a chill moisture on his brow
Meanwhile, Lord Julian, who knew the feminine part of hued in solving the curious problem that had so completely escaped the buccaneer He was spurred to it, I suspect, by certain vague stirrings of jealousy Miss Bishop's conduct in the perils through which they had coht hiraces of cultured femininity and yet because of that lack be the ht have been her earlier relations with Captain Blood, and was conscious of a certain uneasiness which urged him now to probe the matter
His lordshi+p's pale, dreas, and his ere tolerably acute
He was blas before, or, at least, for not having studied the them with more recent observations made that very day
He had observed, for instance, that Blood's shi+p was named the Arabella, and he knew that Arabella was Miss Bishop's na of Captain Blood and Miss Bishop, and the curious change that ht in each
The lady had been monstrously uncivil to the Captain It was a very foolish attitude for a lady in her circumstances to adopt towards a ine Miss Bishop as normally foolish Yet, in spite of her rudeness, in spite of the fact that she was the niece of a ard as his enemy, Miss Bishop and his lordshi+p had been shown the utmost consideration aboard the Captain's shi+p A cabin had been placed at the disposal of each, to which their scanty res and Miss Bishop's woiven the freedoreat cabin, and they had sat down to table with Pitt, the master, and Wolverstone, as Blood's lieutenant, both of whom had shown them the utmost courtesy Also there was the fact that Blood, hi upon them
His lordshi+p's ht, observing and connecting Having exhausted them, he decided to seek additional information from Miss Bishop For this he must wait until Pitt and Wolverstone should have withdrawn He was hardly , for as Pitt rose from table to follow Wolverstone, who had already departed, Miss Bishop detained him with a question: ”Mr Pitt,” she asked, ”were you not one of those who escaped from Barbados with Captain Blood?”
”I was I, too, was one of your uncle's slaves”
”And you have been with Captain Blood ever since?”
”His shi+pmaster always, ma'am”
She nodded She was very calm and self-contained; but his lordshi+p observed that she was unusually pale, though considering what she had that day undergone this afforded no matter for wonder
”Did you ever sail with a Frenchhed The name evoked a ridiculous memory ”Aye He ith us at Maracaybo”
”And another Frenchman named Levasseur?”
His lordshi+p marvelled at her memory of these names
”Aye Cahusac was Levasseur's lieutenant, until he died”
”Until who died?”
”Levasseur He was killed on one of the Virgin Islands two years ago”