Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  “I was overjoyed,” he writes, “to find her so far recovered, and seeming so much herself again, and I expressed my satisfaction.”

  “She were better abed,” snapped Sir John, two hectic spots burning still in his sallow cheeks. “She is distempered, quite.”

  “Sir John is mistaken, my lord,” was her calm assurance, “I am very far from suffering as he conceives.”

  “I rejoice therein, my dear,” said his lordship, and I imagine his questing eyes speeding from one to the other of them, and marking the evidences of Sir John’s temper, wondering what could have passed. “It happens,” he added sombrely, “that we may require your testimony in this grave matter that is toward.” He turned to Sir John. “I have bidden them bring up the prisoner for sentence. Is the ordeal too much for you, Rosamund?”

  “Indeed, no, my lord,” she replied readily. “I welcome it.” And threw back her head as one who braces herself for a trial of endurance.

  “No, no,” cut in Sir John, protesting fiercely. “Do not heed her, Harry. She....”

  “Considering,” she interrupted, “that the chief count against the prisoner must concern his... his dealings with myself, surely the matter is one upon which I should be heard.”

  “Surely, indeed,” Lord Henry agreed, a little bewildered, he confesses, “always provided you are certain it will not overtax your endurance and distress you overmuch. We could perhaps dispense with your testimony.”

  “In that, my lord, I assure you that you are mistaken,” she answered. “You cannot dispense with it.”

  “Be it so, then,” said Sir John grimly, and he strode back to the table, prepared to take his place there.

  Lord Henry’s twinkling blue eyes were still considering Rosamund somewhat searchingly, his fingers tugging thoughtfully at his short tuft of ashen-coloured beard. Then he turned to the door. “Come in, gentlemen,” he said, “and bid them bring up the prisoner.”

  Steps clanked upon the deck, and three of Sir John’s officers made their appearance to complete the court that was to sit in judgment upon the renegade corsair, a judgment whose issue was foregone.

  CHAPTER XXV. THE ADVOCATE

  Chairs were set at the long brown table of massive oak, and the officers sat down, facing the open door and the blaze of sunshine on the poop-deck, their backs to the other door and the horn windows which opened upon the stern-gallery. The middle place was assumed by Lord Henry Goade by virtue of his office of Queen’s Lieutenant, and the reason for his chain of office became now apparent. He was to preside over this summary court. On his right sat Sir John Killigrew, and beyond him an officer named Youldon. The other two, whose names have not survived, occupied his lordship’s left.

  A chair had been set for Rosamund at the table’s extreme right and across the head of it, so as to detach her from the judicial bench. She sat there now, her elbows on the polished board, her face resting in her half-clenched hands, her eyes scrutinizing the five gentlemen who formed this court.

  Steps rang on the companion, and a shadow fell athwart the sunlight beyond the open door. From the vessel’s waist came a murmur of voices and a laugh. Then Sir Oliver appeared in the doorway guarded by two fighting seamen in corselet and morion with drawn swords.

  He paused an instant in the doorway, and his eyelids flickered as if he had received a shock when his glance alighted upon Rosamund. Then under the suasion of his guards he entered, and stood forward, his wrists still pinioned behind him, slightly in advance of the two soldiers.

  He nodded perfunctorily to the court, his face entirely calm.

  “A fine morning, sirs,” said he.

  The five considered him in silence, but Lord Henry’s glance, as it rested upon the corsair’s Muslim garb, was eloquent of the scorn which he tells us filled his heart.

  “You are no doubt aware, sir,” said Sir John after a long pause, “of the purpose for which you have been brought hither.”

  “Scarcely,” said the prisoner. “But I have no doubt whatever of the purpose for which I shall presently be taken hence. However,” he continued, cool and critical, “I can guess from your judicial attitudes the superfluous mockery that you intend. If it will afford you entertainment, faith, I do not grudge indulging you. I would observe only that it might be considerate in you to spare Mistress Rosamund the pain and weariness of the business that is before you.”

  “Mistress Rosamund herself desired to be present,” said Sir John, scowling.

  “Perhaps,” said Sir Oliver, “she does not realize....”

  “I have made it abundantly plain to her,” Sir John interrupted, almost vindictively.

  The prisoner looked at her as if in surprise, his brows knit. Then with a shrug he turned to his judges again.

  “In that case,” said he, “there’s no more to be said. But before you proceed, there is another matter upon which I desire an understanding.

  “The terms of my surrender were that all others should be permitted to go free. You will remember, Sir John, that you pledged me your knightly word for that. Yet I find aboard here one who was lately with me upon my galeasse — a sometime English seaman, named Jasper Leigh, whom you hold a prisoner.”

  “He killed Master Lionel Tressilian,” said Sir John coldly

  “That may be, Sir John. But the blow was delivered before I made my terms with you, and you cannot violate these terms without hurt to your honour.”

  “D’ye talk of honour, sir?” said Lord Henry.

  “Of Sir John’s honour, my lord,” said the prisoner, with mock humility.

  “You are here, sir, to take your trial,” Sir John reminded him.

  “So I had supposed. It is a privilege for which you agreed to pay a certain price, and now it seems you have been guilty of filching something back. It seems so, I say. For I cannot think but that the arrest was inadvertently effected, and that it will suffice that I draw your attention to the matter of Master Leigh’s detention.”

  Sir John considered the table. It was beyond question that he was in honour bound to enlarge Master Leigh, whatever the fellow might have done; and, indeed, his arrest had been made without Sir John’s knowledge until after the event.

  “What am I do with him?” he growled sullenly.

  “That is for yourself to decide, Sir John. But I can tell you what you may not do with him. You may not keep him a prisoner, or carry him to England or injure him in any way. Since his arrest was a pure error, as I gather, you must repair that error as best you can. I am satisfied that you will do so, and need say no more. Your servant, sirs,” he added to intimate that he was now entirely at their disposal, and he stood waiting.

  There was a slight pause, and then Lord Henry, his face inscrutable, his glance hostile and cold, addressed the prisoner.

  “We have had you brought hither to afford you an opportunity of urging any reasons why we should not hang you out of hand, as is our right.”

  Sir Oliver looked at him in almost amused surprise. “Faith!” he said at length. “It was never my habit to waste breath.”

  “I doubt you do not rightly apprehend me, sir,” returned his lordship, and his voice was soft and silken as became his judicial position. “Should you demand a formal trial, we will convey you to England that you may have it.”

  “But lest you should build unduly upon that,” cut in Sir John fiercely, “let me warn you that as the offences for which you are to suffer were chiefly committed within Lord Henry Goade’s own jurisdiction, your trial will take place in Cornwall, where Lord Henry has the honour to be Her Majesty’s Lieutenant and dispenser of justice.”

  “Her Majesty is to be congratulated,” said Sir Oliver elaborately.

  “It is for you to choose, sir,” Sir John ran on, “whether you will be hanged on sea or land.”

  “My only possible objection would be to being hanged in the air. But you’re not likely to heed that,” was the flippant answer.

  Lord Henry leaned forward again. “Let me beg you, sir, in you
r own interests to be serious,” he admonished the prisoner.

  “I confess the occasion, my lord. For if you are to sit in judgment upon my piracy, I could not desire a more experienced judge of the matter on sea or land than Sir John Killigrew.”

  “I am glad to deserve your approval,” Sir John replied tartly. “Piracy,” he added, “is but the least of the counts against you.”

  Sir Oliver’s brows went up, and he stared at the row of solemn faces.

  “As God’s my life, then, your other counts must needs be sound — or else, if there be any justice in your methods, you are like to be disappointed of your hopes of seeing me swing. Proceed, sirs, to the other counts. I vow you become more interesting than I could have hoped.”

  “Can you deny the piracy?” quoth Lord Henry.

  “Deny it? No. But I deny your jurisdiction in the matter, or that of any English court, since I have committed no piracy in English waters.”

  Lord Henry admits that the answer silenced and bewildered him, being utterly unexpected. Yet what the prisoner urged was a truth so obvious that it was difficult to apprehend how his lordship had come to overlook it. I rather fear that despite his judicial office, jurisprudence was not a strong point with his lordship. But Sir John, less perspicuous or less scrupulous in the matter, had his retort ready.

  “Did you not come to Arwenack and forcibly carry off thence....”

  “Nay, now, nay, now,” the corsair interrupted, good-humouredly. “Go back to school, Sir John, to learn that abduction is not piracy.”

  “Call it abduction, if you will,” Sir John admitted.

  “Not if I will, Sir John. We’ll call it what it is, if you please.”

  “You are trifling, sir. But we shall mend that presently,” and Sir John banged the table with his fist, his face flushing slightly in anger. (Lord Henry very properly deplores this show of heat at such a time.) “You cannot pretend to be ignorant,” Sir John continued, “that abduction is punishable by death under the law of England.” He turned to his fellow-judges. “We will then, sirs, with your concurrence, say no more of the piracy.”

  “Faith,” said Lord Henry in his gentle tones, “in justice we cannot.” And he shrugged the matter aside. “The prisoner is right in what he claims. We have no jurisdiction in that matter, seeing that he committed no piracy in English waters, nor — so far as our knowledge goes — against any vessel sailing under the English flag.”

  Rosamund stirred. Slowly she took her elbows from the table, and folded her arms resting them upon the edge of it. Thus leaning forward she listened now with an odd brightness in her eye, a slight flush in her cheeks reflecting some odd excitement called into life by Lord Henry’s admission — an admission which sensibly whittled down the charges against the prisoner.

  Sir Oliver, watching her almost furtively, noted this and marvelled, even as he marvelled at her general composure. It was in vain that he sought to guess what might be her attitude of mind towards himself now that she was safe again among friends and protectors.

  But Sir John, intent only upon the business ahead, plunged angrily on.

  “Be it so,” he admitted impatiently. “We will deal with him upon the counts of abduction and murder. Have you anything to say?”

  “Nothing that would be like to weigh with you,” replied Sir Oliver. And then with a sudden change from his slightly derisive manner to one that was charged with passion: “Let us make an end of this comedy,” he cried, “of this pretence of judicial proceedings. Hang me, and have done, or set me to walk the plank. Play the pirate, for that is a trade you understand. But a’ God’s name don’t disgrace the Queen’s commission by playing the judge.”

  Sir John leapt to his feet, his face aflame. “Now, by Heaven, you insolent knave....”

  But Lord Henry checked him, placing a restraining hand upon his sleeve, and forcing him gently back into his seat. Himself he now addressed the prisoner.

  “Sir, your words are unworthy one who, whatever his crimes, has earned the repute of being a sturdy, valiant fighter. Your deeds are so notorious — particularly that which caused you to flee from England and take to roving, and that of your reappearance at Arwenack and the abduction of which you were then guilty — that your sentence in an English court is a matter foregone beyond all possible doubt. Nevertheless, it shall be yours, as I have said, for the asking.

  “Yet,” he added, and his voice was lowered and very earnest, “were I your friend, Sir Oliver, I would advise you that you rather choose to be dealt with in the summary fashion of the sea.”

  “Sirs,” replied Sir Oliver, “your right to hang me I have not disputed, nor do I. I have no more to say.”

  “But I have.”

  Thus Rosamund at last, startling the court with her crisp, sharp utterance. All turned to look at her as she rose, and stood tall and compelling at the table’s end.

  “Rosamund!” cried Sir John, and rose in his turn. “Let me implore you....”

  She waved him peremptorily, almost contemptuously, into silence.

  “Since in this matter of the abduction with which Sir Oliver is charged,” she said, “I am the person said to have been abducted, it were perhaps well that before going further in this matter you should hear what I may hereafter have to say in an English court.”

  Sir John shrugged, and sat down again. She would have her way, he realized; just as he knew that its only result could be to waste their time and protract the agony of the doomed man.

  Lord Henry turned to her, his manner full of deference. “Since the prisoner has not denied the charge, and since wisely he refrains from demanding to be taken to trial, we need not harass you, Mistress Rosamund. Nor will you be called upon to say anything in an English court.”

  “There you are at fault, my lord,” she answered, her voice very level. “I shall be called upon to say something when I impeach you all for murder upon the high seas, as impeach you I shall if you persist in your intent.”

  “Rosamund!” cried Oliver in his sudden amazement — and it was a cry of joy and exultation.

  She looked at him, and smiled — a smile full of courage and friendliness and something more, a smile for which he considered that his impending hanging was but a little price to pay. Then she turned again to that court, into which her words had flung a sudden consternation.

  “Since he disdains to deny the accusation, I must deny it for him,” she informed them. “He did not abduct me, sirs, as is alleged. I love Oliver Tressilian. I am of full age and mistress of my actions, and I went willingly with him to Algiers where I became his wife.”

  Had she flung a bomb amongst them she could hardly have made a greater disorder of their wits. They sat back, and stared at her with blank faces, muttering incoherencies.

  “His... his wife?” babbled Lord Henry. “You became his....”

  And then Sir John cut in fiercely. “A lie! A lie to save that foul villain’s neck!”

  Rosamund leaned towards him, and her smile was almost a sneer. “Your wits were ever sluggish, Sir John,” she said. “Else you would not need reminding that I could have no object in lying to save him if he had done me the wrong that is imputed to him.” Then she looked at the others. “I think, sirs, that in this matter my word will outweigh Sir John’s or any man’s in any court of justice.”

  “Faith, that’s true enough!” ejaculated the bewildered Lord Henry. “A moment, Killigrew!” And again he stilled the impetuous Sir John. He looked at Sir Oliver, who in truth was very far from being the least bewildered in that company. “What do you say to that, sir?” he asked.

  “To that?” echoed the almost speechless corsair. “What is there left to say?” he evaded.

  “’Tis all false,” cried Sir John again. “We were witnesses of the event — you and I, Harry — and we saw....”

  “You saw,” Rosamund interrupted. “But you did not know what had been concerted.”

  For a moment that silenced them again. They were as men who stand upon
crumbling ground, whose every effort to win to a safer footing but occasioned a fresh slide of soil. Then Sir John sneered, and made his riposte.

  “No doubt she will be prepared to swear that her betrothed, Master Lionel Tressilian, accompanied her willingly upon that elopement.”

  “No,” she answered. “As for Lionel Tressilian he was carried off that he might expiate his sins — sins which he had fathered upon his brother there, sins which are the subject of your other count against him.”

  “Now what can you mean by that?” asked his lordship.

  “That the story that Sir Oliver killed my brother is a calumny; that the murderer was Lionel Tressilian, who, to avoid detection and to complete his work, caused Sir Oliver to be kidnapped that he might be sold into slavery.”

  “This is too much!” roared Sir John. “She is trifling with us, she makes white black and black white. She has been bewitched by that crafty rogue, by Moorish arts that....”

  “Wait!” said Lord Henry, raising his hand. “Give me leave.” He confronted her very seriously. “This... this is a grave statement, mistress. Have you any proof — anything that you conceive to be a proof — of what you are saying?”

  But Sir John was not to be repressed. “’Tis but the lying tale this villain told her. He has bewitched her, I say. ’Tis plain as the sunlight yonder.”

  Sir Oliver laughed outright at that. His mood was growing exultant, buoyant, and joyous, and this was the first expression of it. “Bewitched her? You’re determined never to lack for a charge. First ’twas piracy, then abduction and murder, and now ’tis witchcraft!”

  “Oh, a moment, pray!” cried Lord Henry, and he confesses to some heat at this point. “Do you seriously tell us, Mistress Rosamund, that it was Lionel Tressilian who murdered Peter Godolphin?”

  “Seriously?” she echoed, and her lips were twisted in a little smile of scorn. “I not merely tell it you, I swear it here in the sight of God. It was Lionel who murdered my brother and it was Lionel who put it about that the deed was Sir Oliver’s. It was said that Sir Oliver had run away from the consequences of something discovered against him, and I to my shame believed the public voice. But I have since discovered the truth....”