The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
of my life, what have you to say now?” he cried, his voice husky. And without waiting to hear what it might be, he raved on: “I knew you not frighten the Admiral so easy. He hold us entrap’, and he knows it; yet you dream that he will yield himself to your impudent message. Your fool letter it have seal’ the doom of us all.”
“Have ye done?” quoth Blood quietly, as the Frenchman paused for breath.
“No, I have not.”
“Then spare me the rest. It’ll be of the same quality, devil a doubt, and it doesn’t help us to solve the riddle that’s before us.”
“But what are you going to do? Is it that you will tell me?” It was not a question, it was a demand.
“How the devil do I know? I was hoping you’d have some ideas yourself. But since Ye’re so desperately concerned to save your skin, you and those that think like you are welcome to leave us. I’ve no doubt at all the Spanish Admiral will welcome the abatement of our numbers even at this late date. Ye shall have the sloop as a parting gift from us, and ye can join Don Miguel in the fort for all I care, or for all the good ye’re likely to be to us in this present pass.”
“It is to my men to decide,” Cahusac retorted, swallowing his fury, and on that stalked out to talk to them, leaving the others to deliberate in peace.
Next morning early he sought Captain Blood again. He found him alone in the patio, pacing to and fro, his head sunk on his breast. Cahusac mistook consideration for dejection. Each of us carries in himself a standard by which to measure his neighbour.
“We have take’ you at your word, Captain,” he announced, between sullenness and defiance. Captain Blood paused, shoulders hunched, hands behind his back, and mildly regarded the buccaneer in silence. Cahusac explained himself. “Last night I send one of my men to the Spanish Admiral with a letter. I make him offer to capitulate if he will accord us passage with the honours of war. This morning I receive his answer. He accord us this on the understanding that we carry nothing away with us. My men they are embarking them on the sloop. We sail at once.”
“Bon voyage,” said Captain Blood, and with a nod he turned on his heel again to resume his interrupted mediation.
“Is that all that you have to say to me?” cried Cahusac.
“There are other things,” said Blood over his shoulder. “But I know ye wouldn’t like them.”
“Ha! Then it’s adieu, my Captain.” Venomously he added: “It is my belief that we shall not meet again.”
“Your belief is my hope,” said Captain Blood.
Cahusac flung away, obscenely vituperative. Before noon he was under way with his followers, some sixty dejected men who had allowed themselves to be persuaded by him into that empty-handed departure—in spite even of all that Yberville could do to prevent it. The Admiral kept faith with him, and allowed him free passage out to sea, which, from his knowledge of Spaniards, was more than Captain Blood had expected.
Meanwhile, no sooner had the deserters weighed anchor than Captain Blood received word that the Deputy-Governor begged to be allowed to see him again. Admitted, Don Francisco at once displayed the fact that a night’s reflection had quickened his apprehensions for the city of Maracaybo and his condemnation of the Admiral’s intransigence.
Captain Blood received him pleasantly.
“Good-morning to you, Don Francisco. I have postponed the bonfire until nightfall. It will make a better show in the dark.”
Don Francisco, a slight, nervous, elderly man of high lineage and low vitality, came straight to business.
“I am here to tell you, Don Pedro, that if you will hold your hand for three days, I will undertake to raise the ransom you demand, which Don Miguel de Espinosa refuses.”
Captain Blood confronted him, a frown contracting the dark brows above his light eyes:
“And where will you be raising it?” quoth he, faintly betraying his surprise.
Don Francisco shook his head. “That must remain my affair,” he answered. “I know where it is to be found, and my compatriots must contribute. Give me leave for three days on parole, and I will see you fully satisfied. Meanwhile my son remains in your hands as a hostage for my return.” And upon that he fell to pleading. But in this he was crisply interrupted.
“By the Saints! Ye’re a bold man, Don Francisco, to come to me with such a tale—to tell me that ye know where the ransom’s to be raised, and yet to refuse to say. D’ye think now that with a match between your fingers ye’d grow more communicative?”
If Don Francisco grew a shade paler, yet again he shook his head.
“That was the way of Morgan and L’Ollonais and other pirates. But it is not the way of Captain Blood. If I had doubted that I should not have disclosed so much.”
The Captain laughed. “You old rogue,” said he. “Ye play upon my vanity, do you?”
“Upon your honour, Captain.”
“The honour of a pirate? Ye’re surely crazed!”
“The honour of Captain Blood,” Don Francisco insisted. “You have the repute of making war like a gentleman.”
Captain Blood laughed again, on a bitter, sneering note that made Don Francisco fear the worst. He was not to guess that it was himself the Captain mocked.
“That’s merely because it’s more remunerative in the end. And that is why you are accorded the three days you ask for. So about it, Don Francisco. You shall have what mules you need. I’ll see to it.”
Away went Don Francisco on his errand, leaving Captain Blood to reflect, between bitterness and satisfaction, that a reputation for as much chivalry as is consistent with piracy is not without its uses.
Punctually on the third day the Deputy-Governor was back in Maracaybo with his mules laden with plate and money to the value demanded and a herd of a hundred head of cattle driven in by negro slaves.
These bullocks were handed over to those of the company who ordinarily were boucan-hunters, and therefore skilled in the curing of meats, and for best part of a week thereafter they were busy at the waterside with the quartering and salting of carcases.
While this was doing on the one hand and the ships were being refitted for sea on the other, Captain Blood was pondering the riddle on the solution of which his own fate depended. Indian spies whom he employed brought him word that the Spaniards, working at low tide, had salved the thirty guns of the Salvador, and thus had added yet another battery to their already overwhelming strength. In the end, and hoping for inspiration on the spot, Captain Blood made a reconnaissance in person. At the risk of his life, accompanied by two friendly Indians, he crossed to the island in a canoe under cover of dark. They concealed themselves and the canoe in the short thick scrub with which that side of the island was densely covered, and lay there until daybreak. Then Blood went forward alone, and with infinite precaution, to make his survey. He went to verify a suspicion that he had formed, and approached the fort as nearly as he dared and a deal nearer than was safe.
On all fours he crawled to the summit of an eminence a mile or so away, whence he found himself commanding a view of the interior dispositions of the stronghold. By the aid of a telescope with which he had equipped himself he was able to verify that, as he had suspected and hoped, the fort’s artillery was all mounted on the seaward side.
Satisfied, he returned to Maracaybo, and laid before the six who composed his council—Pitt, Hagthorpe, Yberville, Wolverstone, Dyke, and Ogle—a proposal to storm the fort from the landward side. Crossing to the island under cover of night, they would take the Spaniards by surprise and attempt to overpower them before they could shift their guns to meet the onslaught.
With the exception of Wolverstone, who was by temperament the kind of man who favours desperate chances, those officers received the proposal coldly. Hagthorpe incontinently