A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "A Millionaire of Yesterday"

Mary Roberts Rinehart - "The Circular Staircase"

Wilkie Collins - "THE FROZEN DEEP"

Wilkie Collins - "AFTER DARK"

Captain Blood

R >> Rafael Sabatini >> Captain Blood




"I see," said the Spaniard pensively. He swung his legs from the
couch, and sat now upon the edge of it, his elbows on his knees. He
had taken the measure of his man, and met him with a mock-urbanity
and a suave detachment that matched his own. "I confess," he
admitted, "that there is much force in what you say."

"You take a load from my mind," said Captain Blood. "I would not
appear unnecessarily harsh, especially since I and my friends owe
you so very much. For, whatever it may have been to others, to us
your raid upon Barbados was most opportune. I am glad, therefore,
that you agree the I have no choice."

"But, my friend, I did not agree so much."

"If there is any alternative that you can suggest, I shall be most
happy to consider it."

Don Diego stroked his pointed black beard.

"Can you give me until morning for reflection? My head aches so
damnably that I am incapable of thought. And this, you will admit,
is a matter that asks serious thought."

Captain Blood stood up. Prom a shelf he took a half-hour glass,
reversed it so that the bulb containing the red sand was uppermost,
and stood it on the table.

"I am sorry to press you in such a matter, Don Diego, but one glass
is all that I can give you. If by the time those sands have run
out you can propose no acceptable alternative, I shall most
reluctantly be driven to ask you to go over the side with your
friends."

Captain Blood bowed, went out, and locked the door. Elbows on his
knees and face in his hands, Don Diego sat watching the rusty sands
as they filtered from the upper to the lower bulb. And what time
he watched, the lines in his lean brown face grew deeper. Punctually
as the last grains ran out, the door reopened.

The Spaniard sighed, and sat upright to face the returning Captain
Blood with the answer for which he came.

"I have thought of an alternative, sir captain; but it depends upon
your charity. It is that you put us ashore on one of the islands
of this pestilent archipelago, and leave us to shift for ourselves."

Captain Blood pursed his lips. "It has its difficulties," said he
slowly.

"I feared it would be so." Don Diego sighed again, and stood up.
"Let us say no more."

The light-blue eyes played over him like points of steel.

"You are not afraid to die, Don Diego?"

The Spaniard threw back his head, a frown between his eyes.

"The question is offensive, sir."

"Then let me put it in another way - perhaps more happily: You do
not desire to live?"

"Ah, that I can answer. I do desire to live; and even more do I
desire that my son may live. But the desire shall not make a
coward of me for your amusement, master mocker." It was the first
sign he had shown of the least heat or resentment.

Captain Blood did not directly answer. As before he perched himself
on the corner of the table.

"Would you be willing, sir, to earn life and liberty - for yourself,
your son, and the other Spaniards who are on board?"

"To earn it?" said Don Diego, and the watchful blue eyes did not
miss the quiver that ran through him. "To earn it, do you say?
Why, if the service you would propose is one that cannot hurt my
honour ..."

"Could I be guilty of that?" protested the Captain. "I realize that
even a pirate has his honour." And forthwith he propounded his
offer. "If you will look from those windows, Don Diego, you will
see what appears to be a cloud on the horizon. That is the island
of Barbados well astern. All day we have been sailing east before
the wind with but one intent - to set as great a distance between
Barbados and ourselves as possible. But now, almost out of sight
of land, we are in a difficulty. The only man among us schooled in
the art of navigation is fevered, delirious, in fact, as a result
of certain ill-treatment he received ashore before we carried him
away with us. I can handle a ship in action, and there are one or
two men aboard who can assist me; but of the higher mysteries of
seamanship and of the art of finding a way over the trackless wastes
of ocean, we know nothing. To hug the land, and go blundering about
what you so aptly call this pestilent archipelago, is for us to court
disaster, as you can perhaps conceive. And so it comes to this: We
desire to make for the Dutch settlement of Curacao as straightly as
possible. Will you pledge me your honour, if I release you upon
parole, that you will navigate us thither? If so, we will release
you and your surviving men upon arrival there."

Don Diego bowed his head upon his breast, and strode away in thought
to the stern windows. There he=20stood looking out upon the sunlit
sea and the dead water in the great ship's wake - his ship, which
these English dogs had wrested from him; his ship, which he was
asked to bring safely into a port where she would be completely
lost to him and refitted perhaps to make war upon his kin. That
was in one scale; in the other were the lives of sixteen men.
Fourteen of them mattered little to him, but the remaining two were
his own and his son's.

He turned at length, and his back being to the light, the Captain
could not see how pale his face had grown.

"I accept," he said.



CHAPTER XI

FILIAL PIETY


By virtue of the pledge he had given, Don Diego de Espinosa enjoyed
the freedom of the ship that had been his, and the navigation which
he had undertaken was left entirely in his hands. And because those
who manned her were new to the seas of the Spanish Main, and because
even the things that had happened in Bridgetown were not enough to
teach them to regard every Spaniard as a treacherous, cruel dog to
be slain at sight, they used him with the civility which his own
suave urbanity invited. He took his meals in the great cabin with
Blood and the three officers elected to support him: Hagthorpe,
Wolverstone, and Dyke.

They found Don Diego an agreeable, even an amusing companion, and
their friendly feeling towards him was fostered by his fortitude and
brave equanimity in this adversity.

That Don Diego was not playing fair it was impossible to suspect.
Moreover, there was no conceivable reason why he should not. And
he had been of the utmost frankness with them. He had denounced
their mistake in sailing before the wind upon leaving Barbados.
They should have left the island to leeward, heading into the
Caribbean and away from the archipelago. As it was, they would now
be forced to pass through this archipelago again so as to make
Curacao, and this passage was not to be accomplished without some
measure of risk to themselves. At any point between the islands
they might come upon an equal or superior craft; whether she were
Spanish or English would be equally bad for them, and being
undermanned they were in no case to fight. To lessen this risk
as far as possible, Don Diego directed at first a southerly and
then a westerly course; and so, taking a line midway between the
islands of Tobago and Grenada, they won safely through the
danger-zone and came into the comparative security of the Caribbean
Sea.

"If this wind holds," he told them that night at supper, after he
had announced to them their position, "we should reach Curacao
inside three days."

For three days the wind held, indeed it freshened a little on the
second, and yet when the third night descended upon them they had
still made no landfall. The Cinco Llagas was ploughing through a
sea contained on every side by the blue bowl of heaven. Captain
Blood uneasily mentioned it to Don Diego.

"It will be for to-morrow morning," he was answered with calm
conviction.

"By all the saints, it is always 'to-morrow morning' with you
Spaniards; and to-morrow never comes, my friend."

But this to-morrow is coming, rest assured. However early you may
be astir, you shall see land ahead, Don Pedro."

Captain Blood passed on, content, and went to visit Jerry Pitt, his
patient, to whose condition Don Diego owed his chance of life. For
twenty-four hours now the fever had left the sufferer, and under
Peter Blood's dressings, his lacerated back was beginning to heal
satisfactorily. So far, indeed, was he recovered that he
complained of his confinement, of the heat in his cabin. To indulge
him Captain Blood consented that he should take the air on deck,
and so, as the last of the daylight was fading from the sky, Jeremy
Pitt came forth upon the Captain's arm.

Seated on the hatch-coamings, the Somersetshire lad gratefully
filled his lungs with the cool night air, and professed himself
revived thereby. Then with the seaman's instinct his eyes wandered
to the darkling vault of heaven, spangled already with a myriad
golden points of light. Awhile he scanned it idly, vacantly; then,
his attention became sharply fixed. He looked round and up at
Captain Blood, who stood beside him.

"D' ye know anything of astronomy, Peter?" quoth he.

"Astronomy, is it? Faith, now, I could n't tell the Belt of Orion
from the Girdle of Venus."

"Ah! And I suppose all the others of this lubberly crew share
your ignorance."

"It would be more amiable of you to suppose that they exceed it."

Jeremy pointed ahead to a spot of light in the heavens over the
starboard bow. "That is the North Star," said he.

"Is it now? Glory be, I wonder ye can pick it out from the rest."

"And the North Star ahead almost over your starboard bow means that
we're steering a course, north, northwest, or maybe north by west,
for I doubt if we are standing more than ten degrees westward."

"And why shouldn't we?" wondered Captain Blood.

"You told me - didn't you? - that we came west of the archipelago
between Tobago and Grenada, steering for Curacao. If that were
our present course, we should have the North Star abeam, out yonder."

On the instant Mr. Blood shed his laziness. He stiffened with
apprehension, and was about to speak when a shaft of light clove the
gloom above their heads, coming from the door of the poop cabin
which had just been opened. It closed again, and presently there
was a step on the companion. Don Diego was approaching. Captain
Blood's fingers pressed Jerry's shoulder with significance. Then he
called the Don, and spoke to him in English as had become his custom
when others were present.

"Will ye settle a slight dispute for us, Don Diego?" said he lightly.
"We are arguing, Mr. Pitt and I, as to which is the North Star."

"So?" The Spaniard's tone was easy; there was almost a suggestion
that laughter lurked behind it, and the reason for this was yielded
by his next sentence. "But you tell me Mr. Pitt he is your navigant?"

"For lack of a better," laughed the Captain, good-humouredly
contemptuous. "Now I am ready to wager him a hundred pieces of eight
that that is the North Star." And he flung out an arm towards a
point of light in the heavens straight abeam. He afterwards told
Pitt that had Don Diego confirmed him, he would have run him through
upon that instant. Far from that, however, the. Spaniard freely
expressed his scorn.

"You have the assurance that is of ignorance, Don Pedro; and you lose.
The North Star is this one." And he indicated it.

"You are sure?"

"But my dear Don Pedro!" The Spaniard's tone was one of amused
protest. "But is it possible that I mistake? Besides, is there
not the compass? Come to the binnacle and see there what course we
make."

His utter frankness, and the easy manner of one who has nothing to
conceal resolved at once the doubt that had leapt so suddenly in
the mind of Captain Blood. Pitt was satisfied less easily.

"In that case, Don Diego, will you tell me, since Curacao is our
destination, why our course is what it is?"

Again there was no faintest hesitation on Don Diego's part. "You
have reason to ask," said he, and sighed. "I had hope' it would not
be observe'. I have been careless - oh, of a carelessness very
culpable. I neglect observation. Always it is my way. I make too
sure. I count too much on dead reckoning. And so to-day I find
when at last I take out the quadrant that we do come by a half-degree
too much south, so that Curacao is now almost due north. That is
what cause the delay. But we will be there to-morrow."

The explanation, so completely satisfactory, and so readily and
candidly forthcoming, left no room for further doubt that Don Diego
should have been false to his parole. And when presently Don Diego
had withdrawn again, Captain Blood confessed to Pitt that it was
absurd to have suspected him. Whatever his antecedents, he had
proved his quality when he announced himself ready to die sooner
than enter into any undertaking that could hurt his honour or his
country.

New to the seas of the Spanish Main and to the ways of the
adventurers who sailed it, Captain Blood still entertained
illusions. But the next dawn was to shatter them rudely and for
ever.

Coming on deck before the sun was up, he saw land ahead, as the
Spaniard had promised them last night. Some ten miles ahead it lay,
a long coast-line filling the horizon east and west, with a massive
headland jutting forward straight before them. Staring at it, he
frowned. He had not conceived that Curacao was of such considerable
dimensions. Indeed, this looked less like an island than the main
itself.

Beating out aweather, against the gentle landward breeze he beheld
a great ship on their starboard bow, that he conceived to be some
three or four miles off, and - as well as he could judge her at
that distance - of a tonnage equal if not superior to their own.
Even as he watched her she altered her course, and going about came
heading towards them, close-hauled.

A dozen of his fellows were astir on the forecastle, looking
eagerly ahead, and the sound of their voices and laughter reached
him across the length of the stately Cinco Llagas.

"There," said a soft voice behind him in liquid Spanish, "is the
Promised Land, Don Pedro."

It was something in that voice, a muffled note of exultation, that
awoke suspicion in him, and made whole the half-doubt he had been
entertaining. He turned sharply to face Don Diego, so sharply that
the sly smile was not effaced from the Spaniard's countenance
before Captain Blood's eyes had flashed upon it.

"You find an odd satisfaction in the sight of it - all things
considered," said Mr. Blood.

"Of course." The Spaniard rubbed his hands, and Mr. Blood observed
that they were unsteady. "The satisfaction of a mariner."

"Or of a traitor - which?" Blood asked him quietly. And as the
Spaniard fell back before him with suddenly altered countenance
that confirmed his every suspicion, he flung an arm out in the
direction of the distant shore. "What land is that?" he demanded.
"Will you have the effrontery to tell me that is the coast of
Curacao?"

He advanced upon Don Diego suddenly, and Don Diego, step by step,
fell back. "Shall I tell you what land it is? Shall I?" His fierce
assumption of knowledge seemed to dazzle and daze the Spaniard. For
still Don Diego made no answer. And then Captain Blood drew a bow
at a venture - or not quite at a venture. Such a coast-line as that,
if not of the main itself, and the main he knew it could not be,
must belong to either Cuba or Hispaniola. Now knowing Cuba to lie
farther north and west of the two, it followed, he reasoned swiftly,
that if Don Diego meant betrayal he would steer for the nearer of
these Spanish territories. "That land, you treacherous, forsworn
Spanish dog, is the island of Hispaniola."

Having said it, he closely watched the swarthy face now overspread
with pallor, to see the truth or falsehood of his guess reflected
there. But now the retreating Spaniard had come to the middle of
the quarter-deck, where the mizzen sail made a screen to shut them
off from the eyes of the Englishmen below. His lips writhed in a
snarling smile.

"Ah, perro ingles! You know too much," he said under his breath,
and sprang for the Captain's throat.

Tight-locked in each other's arms, they swayed a moment, then
together went down upon the deck, the Spaniard's feet jerked from
under him by the right leg of Captain Blood. The Spaniard had
depended upon his strength, which was considerable. But it proved
no match for the steady muscles of the Irishman, tempered of late
by the vicissitudes of slavery. He had depended upon choking
the life out of Blood, and so gaining the half-hour that might be
necessary to bring up that fine ship that was beating towards them
- a Spanish ship, perforce, since none other would be so boldly
cruising in these Spanish waters off Hispaniola. But all that Don
Diego had accomplished was to betray himself completely, and to no
purpose. This he realized when he found himself upon his back,
pinned down by Blood, who was' kneeling on his chest, whilst the
men summoned by their Captain's shout came clattering up the
companion.

"Will I say a prayer for your dirty soul now, whilst I am in this
position?" Captain Blood was furiously mocking him.

But the Spaniard, though defeated, now beyond hope for himself,
forced his lips to smile, and gave back mockery for mockery.

"Who will pray for your soul, I wonder, when that galleon comes to
lie board and board with you?"

"That galleon!" echoed Captain Blood with sudden and awful
realization that already it was too late to avoid the consequences
of Don Diego's betrayal of them.

"That galleon," Don Diego repeated, and added with a deepening sneer:
"Do you know what ship it is? I will tell you. It is the
Encarnacion, the flagship of Don Miguel de Espinosa, the Lord Admiral
of Castile, and Don Miguel is my brother. It is a very fortunate
encounter. The Almighty, you see, watches over the destinies of
Catholic Spain."

There was no trace of humour or urbanity now in Captain Blood. His
light eyes blazed: his face was set.

He rose, relinquishing the Spaniard to his men. "Make him fast,"
he bade them. "Truss him, wrist and heel, but don't hurt him - not
so much as a hair of his precious head."

The injunction was very necessary. Frenzied by the thought that
they were likely to exchange the slavery from which they had so
lately escaped for a slavery still worse, they would have torn the
Spaniard limb from limb upon the spot. And if they now obeyed
their Captain and refrained, it was only because the sudden steely
note in his voice promised for Don Diego Valdez something far more
exquisite than death.

"You scum! You dirty pirate! You man of honour!" Captain Blood
apostrophized his prisoner.

But Don Diego looked up at him and laughed.

"You underrated me." He spoke English, so that all might hear.
"I tell you that I was not fear death, and I show you that I was
not fear it. You no understand. You just an English dog."

"Irish, if you please," Captain Blood corrected him. "And your
parole, you tyke of Spain?"

"You think I give my parole to leave you sons of filth with this
beautiful Spanish ship, to go make war upon other Spaniards! Ha!"
Don Diego laughed in his throat. "You fool! You can kill me.
Pish! It is very well. I die with my work well done. In less
than an hour you will be the prisoners of Spain, and the Cinco
Llagas will go belong to Spain again."

Captain Blood regarded him steadily out of a face which, if
impassive, had paled under its deep tan. About the prisoner,
clamant, infuriated, ferocious, the rebels-convict surged, almost
literally "athirst for his blood."

"Wait," Captain Blood imperiously commanded, and turning on his
heel, he went aside to the rail. As he stood there deep in thought,
he was joined by Hagthorpe, Wolverstone, and Ogle the gunner. In
silence they stared with him across the water at that other ship.
She had veered a point away from the wind, and was running now on
a line that must in the end converge with that of the Cinco Llagas.

"In less than half-an-hour," said Blood presently, "we shall have
her athwart our hawse, sweeping our decks with her guns."

"We can fight," said the one-eyed giant with an oath.

"Fight!" sneered Blood. "Undermanned as we are, mustering a bare
twenty men, in what case are we to fight? No, there would be only
one way. To persuade her that all is well aboard, that we are
Spaniards, so that she may leave us to continue on our course."

"And how is that possible?" Hagthorpe asked.

"It isn't possible," said Blood. "If it ..." And then he broke
off, and stood musing, his eyes upon the green water. Ogle, with a
bent for sarcasm, interposed a suggestion bitterly.

"We might send Don Diego de Espinosa in a boat manned by his
Spaniards to assure his brother the Admiral that we are all loyal
subjects of his Catholic Majesty."

The Captain swung round, and for an instant looked as if he would
have struck the gunner. Then his expression changed: the light of
inspiration Was in his glance.

"Bedad! ye've said it. He doesn't fear death, this damned pirate;
but his son may take a different view. Filial piety's mighty
strong in Spain." He swung on his heel abruptly, and strode back
to the knot of men about his prisoner. "Here!" he shouted to them.
"Bring him below." And he led the way down to the waist, and thence
by the booby hatch to the gloom of the 'tween-decks, where the air
was rank with the smell of tar and spun yarn. Going aft he threw
open the door of the spacious wardroom, and went in followed by a
dozen of the hands with the pinioned Spaniard. Every man aboard
would have followed him but for his sharp command to some of them
to remain on deck with Hagthorpe.

In the ward-room the three stern chasers were in position, loaded,
their muzzles thrusting through the open ports, precisely as the
Spanish gunners had left them.

"Here, Ogle, is work for you," said Blood, and as the burly gunner
came thrusting forward through the little throng of gaping men,
Blood pointed to the middle chaser; "Have that gun hauled back,"
he ordered.

When this was done, Blood beckoned those who held Don Diego.

"Lash him across the mouth of it," he bade them, and whilst, assisted
by another two, they made haste to obey, he turned to the others.=20
"To the roundhouse, some of you, and fetch the Spanish prisoners.
And you, Dyke, go up and bid them set the flag of Spain aloft."

Don Diego, with his body stretched in an arc across the cannon's
mouth, legs and arms lashed to the carriage on either side of it,
eyeballs rolling in his head, glared maniacally at Captain Blood.
A man may not fear to die, and yet be appalled by the form in which
death comes to him.

>From frothing lips he hurled blasphemies and insults at his tormentor.

"Foul barbarian! Inhuman savage! Accursed heretic! Will it not
content you to kill me in some Christian fashion?" Captain Blood
vouchsafed him a malignant smile, before he turned to meet the
fifteen manacled Spanish prisoners, who were thrust into his presence.

Approaching, they had heard Don Diego's outcries; at close quarters
now they beheld with horror-stricken eyes his plight. From amongst
them a comely, olive-skinned stripling, distinguished in bearing and
apparel from his companions, started forward with an anguished cry
of "Father!"

Writhing in the arms that made haste to seize and hold him, he
called upon heaven and hell to avert this horror, and lastly,
addressed to Captain Blood an appeal for mercy that was at once
fierce and piteous. Considering him, Captain Blood thought with
satisfaction that he displayed the proper degree of filial piety.

He afterwards confessed that for a moment he was in danger of
weakening, that for a moment his mind rebelled against the pitiless
thing it had planned. But to correct the sentiment he evoked a
memory of what these Spaniards had performed in Bridgetown. Again
he saw the white face of that child Mary Traill as she fled in
horror before the jeering ruffian whom he had slain, and other
things even more unspeakable seen on that dreadful evening rose
now before the eyes of his memory to stiffen, his faltering purpose.
The Spaniards had shown themselves without mercy or sentiment or
decency of any kind; stuffed with religion, they were without a
spark of that Christianity, the Symbol of which was mounted on
the mainmast of the approaching ship. A moment ago this cruel,
vicious Don Diego had insulted the Almighty by his assumption that
He kept a specially benevolent watch over the destinies of Catholic
Spain. Don Diego should be taught his error.

Recovering the cynicism in which he had approached his task, the
cynicism essential to its proper performance, he commanded Ogle
to kindle a match and remove the leaden apron from the touch-hole
of the gun that bore Don Diego. Then, as the younger Espinosa
broke into fresh intercessions mingled with imprecations, he
wheeled upon him sharply.

"Peace!" he snapped. "Peace, and listen! It is no part of my
intention to blow your father to hell as he deserves, or indeed
to take his life at all."

Having surprised the lad into silence by that promise - a promise
surprising enough in all the circumstances - he proceeded to
explain his aims in that faultless and elegant Castilian of which
he was fortunately master - as fortunately for Don Diego as for
himself.

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.