Part 25 (2/2)
Blood contained himself with difficulty One of these fine days, he felt, that for the sake of huant cockerel
”You may define our positions as you please,” said he ”But I'll reed by the naive it I am concerned with facts; chiefly with the fact that we entered into definite articles with you Those articles provide for a certain distribution of the spoil My men demand it They are not satisfied”
”Of what are they not satisfied?” demanded the Baron
”Of your honesty, M de Rivarol”
A blow in the face could scarcely have taken the Frenchman more aback He stiffened, and drew hi, his face of a deathly pallor The clerks at the tables laid down their pens, and awaited the explosion in a sort of terror
For a long entleer ”Do you really dare so much, you and the dirty thieves that follow you? God's Blood! You shall answer to h it entail a yet worse dishonour to h!”
”I will re not for myself, but for my men It is they who are not satisfied, they who threaten that unless satisfaction is afforded them, and promptly, they will take it”
”Take it?” said Rivarol, tree ”Let them attempt it, and”
”Now don't be rash My hts, as you are aware They de of the spoil is to take place, and when they are to receive the fifth for which their articles provide”
”God give me patience! How can we share the spoil before it has been coathered?”
”My athered; and, anyway, they vieith mistrust that it should all be housed aboard your shi+ps, and remain in your possession They say that hereafter there will be no ascertaining what the spoil really amounts to”
”But - name of Heaven! - I have kept books They are there for all to see”
”They do not wish to see account-books Few of them can read They want to view the treasure itself They know - you compel me to be blunt - that the accounts have been falsified Your books show the spoil of Cartagena to amount to some ten million livres The men know - and they are very skilled in these computations - that it exceeds the enormous total of forty millions They insist that the treasure itself be produced and weighed in their presence, as is the custo of filibuster custo quickly”
”What do youthieves”
”Oh, but of course!” Blood's irony laughed in his eyes ”Yet, whatever you may be, I warn you that unless you yield to a demand that I consider just and therefore uphold, you may look for trouble, and it would not surprise old piece home to France”
”Ah, pardieu! A me?”
”Come, come, M le Baron! I warn you of the trouble that a little prudenceYou do not know the ways of buccaneers If you persist, Cartagena will be drenched in blood, and whatever the outco of France will not have been well served”
That shi+fted the basis of the arguround Awhile yet it continued, to be concluded at last by an ungracious undertaking from M de Rivarol to subave it with an extrerace, and only because Blood er would be dangerous In an engageht conceivably defeat Blood's followers But conceivably he ht not And even if he succeeded, the effort would be so costly to hiht not thereafter find hith to maintain his hold of what he had seized
The end of it all was that he gave a promise at once to make the necessary preparations, and if Captain Blood and his officers would wait upon hi, the treasure should be produced, weighed in their presence, and their fifth share surrendered there and then into their own keeping
Aht there was hilarity over the sudden abatement of M de Rivarol's ena, they had the explanation of it The only shi+ps to be seen in the harbour were the Arabella and the Elizabeth riding at anchor, and the Atropos and the Lachesis careened on the beach for repair of the daone They had been quietly and secretly warped out of the harbour under cover of night, and three sails, faint and small, on the horizon to as all that reone off with the treasure, taking with hiht froena not only the empty-handed buccaneers, whom he had swindled, but also M de Cussy and the volunteers and negroes from Hispaniola, whom he had swindled no less
The two parties were fused into one by their common fury, and before the exhibition of it the inhabitants of that ill-fated toere stricken with deeper terror than they had yet known since the co of this expedition
Captain Blood alone kept his head, setting a curb upon his deep chagrin He had pro fro for all the petty affronts and insults to which that unspeakable fellow - now proved a scoundrel - had subjected him
”We must follow,” he declared ”Follow and punish”
At first that was the general cry Then came the consideration that only two of the buccaneer shi+ps were seaworthy - and these could not acco at the e The crews of the Lachesis and Atropos and with them their captains, Wolverstone and Yberville, renounced the intention After all, there would be a deal of treasure still hidden in Cartagena They would re their shi+ps for sea Let Blood and Hagthorpe and those who sailed with them do as they pleased
Then only did Blood realize the rashness of his proposal, and in atte to draw back he almost precipitated a battle between the two parties into which that same proposal had now divided the buccaneers Andless and less Blood was reduced to despair If he went off now, Heaven kneould happen to the town, the te what it was Yet if he rethorpe's creould join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable Unable to reach a decision, his own ive chase to Rivarol Not only was a dastardly cheat to be punished but an enor as an enemy this French commander who, himself, had so villainously broken the alliance
When Blood, torn as he was between conflicting considerations, still hesitated, they bore him almost by main force aboard the Arabella
Within an hour, the water-casks at least replenished and stowed aboard, the Arabella and the Elizabeth put to sea upon that angry chase
”When ell at sea, and the Arabella's course was laid,” writes Pitt, in his log, ”I went to seek the Captain, knowing hireat trouble ofalone in his cabin, his head in his hands, tor nothing”
”What now, Peter?” cried the young Somerset mariner ”Lord, ht of Rivarol!”
”No,” said Blood thickly And for once he was co that oppressed him or be driven mad by it And Pitt, after all, was his friend and loved him, and, so, a proper man for confidences ”But if she knew! If she knew! O God! I had thought to have done with piracy; thought to have done with it for ever Yet here have I been comuilty of Think of Cartagena! Think of the hell those devils will beof it now! And I must have that on my soul!”
”Nay, Peter- 't isn't on your soul; but on Rivarol's It is that dirty thief who has brought all this about What could you have done to prevent it?”
”I would have stayed if it could have availed”
”It could not, and you know it So why repine?”
”There is roaned Blood ”What now? What relish was made impossible for me Loyal service with France has led to this; and that is equally impossible hereafter What to live clean, I believe the only thing is to go and offerre that he could have expected - so over the tropical, sunlit sea All this against which he now inveighed so bitterly was but a necessary stage in the shaping of his odd destiny
Setting a course for Hispaniola, since they judged that thitherto cross to France, the Arabella and the Elizabeth ploughed briskly northith a hts without ever catching a gliht with it a haze which circu between two and threevexation and their apprehension that M de Rivarol ether
Their position then - according to Pitt's log - was approxi 45' N Lat, so that they had Jamaica on their larboard beam some thirty miles to ard, and, indeed, away to the northwest, faintly visible as a bank of clouds, appeared the great ridge of the Blue Mountains whose peaks were thrust into the clear upper air above the low-lying haze The wind, to which they were sailing very close, esterly, and it bore to their ears a booht have passed for the breaking of surf upon a lee shore
”Guns!” said Pitt, who stood with Blood upon the quarter-deck Blood nodded, listening
”Ten miles away, perhaps fifteen - soe,” Pitt added Then he looked at his captain ”Does it concern us?” he asked
”Guns off Port Royal that should argue Colonel Bishop at work And against whoainst friends of ours I think it ate Bid them put the heluided by the sound of corew in volume and definition as they approached it Thus for an hour, perhaps Then, as, telescope to his eye, Blood raked the haze, expecting at any uns abruptly ceased
They held to their course, nevertheless, with all hands on deck, eagerly, anxiously scanning the sea ahead And presently an object looreat shi+p on fire As the Arabella with the Elizabeth following closely raced nearer on their north-westerly tack, the outlines of the blazing vessel grew clearer Presently her masts stood out sharp and black above the sh his telescope Bloodfrom her maintop