The Rafael Sabatini Megapack. Rafael Sabatini
do out here.”
“But didn’t he ask you to go with him?”
“He did. I forgive you the impertinence.”
A wild hope leapt to life within him.
“And you? Glory be, ye’ll not be telling me ye refused to become my lady, when.…”
“Oh! You are insufferable!” She tore her hand free and backed away from him. “I should not have come. Good-bye!” She was speeding to the door.
He sprang after her, and caught her. Her face flamed, and her eyes stabbed him like daggers. “These are pirate’s ways, I think! Release me!”
“Arabella!” he cried on a note of pleading. “Are ye meaning it? Must I release ye? Must I let ye go and never set eyes on ye again? Or will ye stay and make this exile endurable until we can go home together? Och, ye’re crying now! What have I said to make ye cry, my dear?”
“I…I thought you’d never say it,” she mocked him through her tears.
“Well, now, ye see there was Lord Julian, a fine figure of a.…”
“There was never, never anybody but you, Peter.”
They had, of course, a deal to say thereafter, so much, indeed, that they sat down to say it, whilst time sped on, and Governor Blood forgot the duties of his office. He had reached home at last. His odyssey was ended.
And meanwhile Colonel Bishop’s fleet had come to anchor, and the Colonel had landed on the mole, a disgruntled man to be disgruntled further yet. He was accompanied ashore by Lord Julian Wade.
A corporal’s guard was drawn up to receive him, and in advance of this stood Major Mallard and two others who were unknown to the Deputy-Governor: one slight and elegant, the other big and brawny.
Major Mallard advanced. “Colonel Bishop, I have orders to arrest you. Your sword, sir!”
“By order of the Governor of Jamaica,” said the elegant little man behind Major Mallard. Bishop swung to him.
“The Governor? Ye’re mad!” He looked from one to the other. “I am the Governor.”
“You were,” said the little man dryly. “But we’ve changed that in your absence. You’re broke for abandoning your post without due cause, and thereby imperiling the settlement over which you had charge. It’s a serious matter, Colonel Bishop, as you may find. Considering that you held your office from the Government of King James, it is even possible that a charge of treason might lie against you. It rests with your successor entirely whether ye’re hanged or not.”
Bishop rapped out an oath, and then, shaken by a sudden fear: “Who the devil may you be?” he asked.
“I am Lord Willoughby, Governor General of His Majesty’s colonies in the West Indies. You were informed, I think, of my coming.”
The remains of Bishop’s anger fell from him like a cloak. He broke into a sweat of fear. Behind him Lord Julian looked on, his handsome face suddenly white and drawn.
“But, my lord…” began the Colonel.
“Sir, I am not concerned to hear your reasons,” his lordship interrupted him harshly. “I am on the point of sailing and I have not the time. The Governor will hear you, and no doubt deal justly by you.” He waved to Major Mallard, and Bishop, a crumpled, broken man, allowed himself to be led away.
To Lord Julian, who went with him, since none deterred him, Bishop expressed himself when presently he had sufficiently recovered.
“This is one more item to the account of that scoundrel Blood,” he said, through his teeth. “My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!”
Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor’s house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop’s own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him.
Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities.
“You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter,” she pleaded.
“To be sure I will,” said Blood. “But I’m afraid the circumstances won’t.”
She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel.
“His excellency the Governor will see you now,” said he, and threw wide the door.
Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting.
At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing.
The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral’s flagship.
“Id is fery boedigal!” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry—you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!”
*
SCARAMOUCHE
BOOK I: THE ROBE
CHAPTER I
THE REPUBLICAN
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the lad’s rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau—as the lad had been named—and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below.
Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school, lodged the while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at the age of fifteen, he had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycee of Louis Le Grand, to study the law which he was now returned to practise in conjunction with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his godfather, M. de Kercadiou, who by placing him once more under the tutelage of Rabouillet would seem thereby quite clearly to be making provision for his future.
Andre-Louis, on his side, had made the most of his opportunities. You behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough to produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of his zestful study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from Seneca to Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction his earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own species. Nor can I discover that anything in his eventful life ever afterwards caused him to waver in that opinion.
In body he was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above middle height, with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and with lank, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. His mouth was long, thin-lipped, and humorous. He was only just redeemed from ugliness by the splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so dark as to be almost black. Of the whimsical quality of his mind and his rare gift of graceful expression, his writings—unfortunately but too scanty—and particularly his Confessions, afford us very ample evidence. Of his gift of oratory he was hardly conscious yet, although he had already achieved a certain fame for it in the Literary Chamber of Rennes—one of