Some one knocked. Cursing the interruption, Levasseur strode off to open. Cahusac stood before him. The Breton’s face was grave. He came to report that they had sprung a leak between wind and water, the consequence of damage sustained from one of the Dutchman’s shots. In alarm Levasseur went off with him. The leakage was not serious so long as the weather kept fine; but should a storm overtake them it might speedily become so. A man was slung overboard to make a partial stoppage with a sail-cloth, and the pumps were got to work.
Ahead of them a low cloud showed on the horizon, which Cahusac pronounced one of the northernmost of the Virgin Islands.
“We must run for shelter there, and careen her,” said Levasseur. “I do not trust this oppressive heat. A storm may catch us before we make land.”
“A storm or something else,” said Cahusac grimly. “Have you noticed that?” He pointed away to starboard.
Levasseur looked, and caught his breath. Two ships that at the distance seemed of considerable burden were heading towards them some five miles away.
“If they follow us what is to happen?” demanded Cahusac.
“We’ll fight whether we’re in case to do so or not,” swore Levasseur.
“Counsels of despair.” Cahusac was contemptuous. To mark it he spat upon the deck. “This comes of going to sea with a lovesick madman. Now, keep your temper, Captain, for the hands will be at the end of theirs if we have trouble as a result of this Dutchman business.”
For the remainder of that day Levasseur’s thoughts were of anything but love. He remained on deck, his eyes now upon the land, now upon those two slowly gaining ships. To run for the open could avail him nothing, and in his leaky condition would provide an additional danger. He must stand at bay and fight. And then, towards evening, when within three miles of shore and when he was about to give the order to strip for battle, he almost fainted from relief to hear a voice from the crow’s-nest above announce that the larger of the two ships was the Arabella. Her companion was presumably a prize.
But the pessimism of Cahusac abated nothing.
“That is but the lesser evil,” he growled. “What will Blood say about this Dutchman?”
“Let him say what he pleases.” Levasseur laughed in the immensity of his relief.
“And what about the children of the Governor of Tortuga?”
“He must not know.”
“He’ll come to know in the end.”
“Aye, but by then, morbleu, the matter will be settled. I shall have made my peace with the Governor. I tell you I know the way to compel Ogeron to come to terms.”
Presently the four vessels lay to off the northern coast of La Virgen Magra, a narrow little island arid and treeless, some twelve miles by three, uninhabited save by birds and turtles and unproductive of anything but salt, of which there were considerable ponds to the south.
Levasseur put off in a boat accompanied by Cahusac and two other officers, and went to visit Captain Blood aboard the Arabella.
“Our brief separation has been mighty profitable,” was Captain Blood’s greeting. “It’s a busy morning we’ve both had.” He was in high good-humour as he led the way to the great cabin for a rendering of accounts.
The tall ship that accompanied the Arabella was a Spanish vessel of twenty-six guns, the Santiago from Puerto Rico with a hundred and twenty thousand weight of cacao, forty thousand pieces of eight, and the value of ten thousand more in jewels. A rich capture of which two fifths under the articles went to Levasseur and his crew. Of the money and jewels a division was made on the spot. The cacao it was agreed should be taken to Tortuga to be sold.
Then it was the turn of Levasseur, and black grew the brow of Captain Blood as the Frenchman’s tale was unfolded. At the end he roundly expressed his disapproval. The Dutch were a friendly people whom it was a folly to alienate, particularly for so paltry a matter as these hides and tobacco, which at most would fetch a bare twenty thousand pieces.
But Levasseur answered him, as he had answered Cahusac, that a ship was a ship, and it was ships they needed against their projected enterprise. Perhaps because things had gone well with him that day, Blood ended by shrugging the matter aside. Thereupon Levasseur proposed that the Arabella and her prize should return to Tortuga there to unload the cacao and enlist the further adventurers that could now be shipped. Levasseur meanwhile would effect certain necessary repairs, and then proceeding south, await his admiral at Saltatudos, an island conveniently situated — in the latitude of 11 deg. 11’ N. — for their enterprise against Maracaybo.
To Levasseur’s relief, Captain Blood not only agreed, but pronounced himself ready to set sail at once.
No sooner had the Arabella departed than Levasseur brought his ships into the lagoon, and set his crew to work upon the erection of temporary quarters ashore for himself, his men, and his enforced guests during the careening and repairing of La Foudre.
At sunset that evening the wind freshened; it grew to a gale, and from that to such a hurricane that Levasseur was thankful to find himself ashore and his ships in safe shelter. He wondered a little how it might be faring with Captain Blood out there at the mercy of that terrific storm; but he did not permit concern to trouble him unduly.
CHAPTER XV. THE RANSOM
In the glory of the following morning, sparkling and clear after the storm, with an invigorating, briny tang in the air from the salt-ponds on the south of the island, a curious scene was played on the beach of the Virgen Magra, at the foot of a ridge of bleached dunes, beside the spread of sail from which Levasseur had improvised a tent.
Enthroned upon an empty cask sat the French filibuster to transact important business: the business of making himself safe with the Governor of Tortuga.
A guard of honour of a half-dozen officers hung about him; five of them were rude boucan-hunters, in stained jerkins and leather breeches; the sixth was Cahusac. Before him, guarded by two half-naked negroes, stood young d’Ogeron, in frilled shirt and satin small-clothes and fine shoes of Cordovan leather. He was stripped of doublet, and his hands were tied behind him. The young gentleman’s comely face was haggard. Near at hand, and also under guard, but unpinioned, mademoiselle his sister sat hunched upon a hillock of sand. She was very pale, and it was in vain that she sought to veil in a mask of arrogance the fears by which she was assailed.
Levasseur addressed himself to M. d’Ogeron. He spoke at long length. In the end —
“I trust, monsieur,” said he, with mock suavity, “that I have made myself quite clear. So that there may be no misunderstandings, I will recapitulate. Your ransom is fixed at twenty thousand pieces of eight, and you shall have liberty on parole to go to Tortuga to collect it. In fact, I shall provide the means to convey you thither, and you shall have a month in which to come and go. Meanwhile, your sister remains with me as a hostage. Your father should not consider such a sum excessive as the price of his son’s liberty and to provide a dowry for his daughter. Indeed, if anything, I am too modest, pardi! M. d’Ogeron is reputed a wealthy man.”
M. d’Ogeron the younger raised his head and looked the Captain boldly in the face.
“I refuse — utterly and absolutely, do you understand? So do your worst, and be damned for a filthy pirate without decency and without honour.”
“But what words!” laughed Levasseur. “What heat and what foolishness! You have not considered the alternative. When you do, you will not persist in your refusal. You will not do that in any case. We have spurs for the reluctant. And I warn you against giving me your parole under stress, and afterwards playing me false. I shall know how to find and punish you. Meanwhile, remember your sister’s honour is in pawn to me. Should you forget to return with the dowry, you will not consider it unreasonable that I forget to marry her.”
Levasseur’s smiling eyes, intent upon the young man’s face, saw the horror that crept into his glance. M. d’Ogeron cast a wild glance at mademoiselle, and observed the grey despair that had almost stamped the beauty from her
face. Disgust and fury swept across his countenance.
Then he braced himself and answered resolutely:
“No, you dog! A thousand times, no!”
“You are foolish to persist.” Levasseur spoke without anger, with a coldly mocking regret. His fingers had been busy tying knots in a length of whipcord. He held it up. “You know this? It is a rosary of pain that has wrought the conversion of many a stubborn heretic. It is capable of screwing the eyes out of a man’s head by way of helping him to see reason. As you please.”
He flung the length of knotted cord to one of the negroes, who in an instant made it fast about the prisoner’s brows. Then between cord and cranium the black inserted a short length of metal, round and slender as a pipe-stem. That done he rolled his eyes towards Levasseur, awaiting the Captain’s signal.
Levasseur considered his victim, and beheld him tense and braced, his haggard face of a leaden hue, beads of perspiration glinting on his pallid brow just beneath the whipcord.
Mademoiselle cried out, and would have risen: but her guards restrained her, and she sank down again, moaning.
“I beg that you will spare yourself and your sister,” said the Captain, “by being reasonable. What, after all, is the sum I have named? To your wealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been too modest. But since I have said twenty thousand pieces of eight, twenty thousand pieces it shall be.”
“And for what, if you please, have you said twenty thousand pieces of eight?”
In execrable French, but in a voice that was crisp and pleasant, seeming to echo some of the mockery that had invested Levasseur’s, that question floated over their heads.
Startled, Levasseur and his officers looked up and round. On the crest of the dunes behind them, in sharp silhouette against the deep cobalt of the sky, they beheld a tall, lean figure scrupulously dressed in black with silver lace, a crimson ostrich plume curled about the broad brim of his hat affording the only touch of colour. Under that hat was the tawny face of Captain Blood.
Levasseur gathered himself up with an oath of amazement. He had conceived Captain Blood by now well below the horizon, on his way to Tortuga, assuming him to have been so fortunate as to have weathered last night’s storm.
Launching himself upon the yielding sand, into which he sank to the level of the calves of his fine boots of Spanish leather, Captain Blood came sliding erect to the beach. He was followed by Wolverstone, and a dozen others. As he came to a standstill, he doffed his hat, with a flourish, to the lady. Then he turned to Levasseur.
“Good-morning, my Captain,” said he, and proceeded to explain his presence. “It was last night’s hurricane compelled our return. We had no choice but to ride before it with stripped poles, and it drove us back the way we had gone. Moreover — as the devil would have it! — the Santiago sprang her mainmast; and so I was glad to put into a cove on the west of the island a couple of miles away, and we’ve walked across to stretch our legs, and to give you good-day. But who are these?” And he designated the man and the woman.
Cahusac shrugged his shoulders, and tossed his long arms to heaven.
“Voila!” said he, pregnantly, to the firmament.
Levasseur gnawed his lip, and changed colour. But he controlled himself to answer civilly:
“As you see, two prisoners.”
“Ah! Washed ashore in last night’s gale, eh?”
“Not so.” Levasseur contained himself with difficulty before that irony. “They were in the Dutch brig.”
“I don’t remember that you mentioned them before.”
“I did not. They are prisoners of my own — a personal matter. They are French.”
“French!” Captain Blood’s light eyes stabbed at Levasseur, then at the prisoners.
M. d’Ogeron stood tense and braced as before, but the grey horror had left his face. Hope had leapt within him at this interruption, obviously as little expected by his tormentor as by himself. His sister, moved by a similar intuition, was leaning forward with parted lips and gaping eyes.
Captain Blood fingered his lip, and frowned thoughtfully upon Levasseur.
“Yesterday you surprised me by making war upon the friendly Dutch. But now it seems that not even your own countrymen are safe from you.”
“Have I not said that these... that this is a matter personal to me?”
“Ah! And their names?”
Captain Blood’s crisp, authoritative, faintly disdainful manner stirred Levasseur’s quick anger. The blood crept slowly back into his blenched face, and his glance grew in insolence, almost in menace. Meanwhile the prisoner answered for him.
“I am Henri d’Ogeron, and this is my sister.”
“D’Ogeron?” Captain Blood stared. “Are you related by chance to my good friend the Governor of Tortuga?”
“He is my father.”
Levasseur swung aside with an imprecation. In Captain Blood, amazement for the moment quenched every other emotion.
“The saints preserve us now! Are you quite mad, Levasseur? First you molest the Dutch, who are our friends; next you take prisoners two persons that are French, your own countrymen; and now, faith, they’re no less than the children of the Governor of Tortuga, which is the one safe place of shelter that we enjoy in these islands....”
Levasseur broke in angrily:
“Must I tell you again that it is a matter personal to me? I make myself alone responsible to the Governor of Tortuga.”
“And the twenty thousand pieces of eight? Is that also a matter personal to you?”
“It is.”
“Now I don’t agree with you at all.” Captain Blood sat down on the cask that Levasseur had lately occupied, and looked up blandly. “I may inform you, to save time, that I heard the entire proposal that you made to this lady and this gentleman, and I’ll also remind you that we sail under articles that admit no ambiguities. You have fixed their ransom at twenty thousand pieces of eight. That sum then belongs to your crews and mine in the proportions by the articles established. You’ll hardly wish to dispute it. But what is far more grave is that you have concealed from me this part of the prizes taken on your last cruise, and for such an offence as that the articles provide certain penalties that are something severe in character.”
“Ho, ho!” laughed Levasseur unpleasantly. Then added: “If you dislike my conduct we can dissolve the association.”
“That is my intention. But we’ll dissolve it when and in the manner that I choose, and that will be as soon as you have satisfied the articles under which we sailed upon this cruise.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll be as short as I can,” said Captain Blood. “I’ll waive for the moment the unseemliness of making war upon the Dutch, of taking French prisoners, and of provoking the anger of the Governor of Tortuga. I’ll accept the situation as I find it. Yourself you’ve fixed the ransom of this couple at twenty thousand pieces, and, as I gather, the lady is to be your perquisite. But why should she be your perquisite more than another’s, seeing that she belongs by the articles to all of us, as a prize of war?”
Black as thunder grew the brow of Levasseur.
“However,” added Captain Blood, “I’ll not dispute her to you if you are prepared to buy her.”
“Buy her?”
“At the price you have set upon her.”
Levasseur contained his rage, that he might reason with the Irishman. “That is the ransom of the man. It is to be paid for him by the Governor of Tortuga.”
“No, no. Ye’ve parcelled the twain together — very oddly, I confess. Ye’ve set their value at twenty thousand pieces, and for that sum you may have them, since you desire it; but you’ll pay for them the twenty thousand pieces that are ultimately to come to you as the ransom of one and the dowry of the other; and that sum shall be divided among our crews. So that you do that, it is conceivable that our followers may take a lenient view of your breach of the articles we jointly signed.”
Levasseur laughed savagely. �
�Ah ca! Credieu! The good jest!”
“I quite agree with you,” said Captain Blood.
To Levasseur the jest lay in that Captain Blood, with no more than a dozen followers, should come there attempting to hector him who had a hundred men within easy call. But it seemed that he had left out of his reckoning something which his opponent had counted in. For as, laughing still, Levasseur swung to his officers, he saw that which choked the laughter in his throat. Captain Blood had shrewdly played upon the cupidity that was the paramount inspiration of those adventurers. And Levasseur now read clearly on their faces how completely they adopted Captain Blood’s suggestion that all must participate in the ransom which their leader had thought to appropriate to himself.
It gave the gaudy ruffian pause, and whilst in his heart he cursed those followers of his, who could be faithful only to their greed, he perceived — and only just in time — that he had best tread warily.
“You misunderstand,” he said, swallowing his rage. “The ransom is for division, when it comes. The girl, meanwhile, is mine on that understanding.”
“Good!” grunted Cahusac. “On that understanding all arranges itself.”
“You think so?” said Captain Blood. “But if M. d’Ogeron should refuse to pay the ransom? What then?” He laughed, and got lazily to his feet. “No, no. If Captain Levasseur is meanwhile to keep the girl, as he proposes, then let him pay this ransom, and be his the risk if it should afterwards not be forthcoming.”
“That’s it!” cried one of Levasseur’s officers. And Cahusac added: “It’s reasonable, that! Captain Blood is right. It is in the articles.”
“What is in the articles, you fools?” Levasseur was in danger of losing his head. “Sacre Dieu! Where do you suppose that I have twenty thousand pieces? My whole share of the prizes of this cruise does not come to half that sum. I’ll be your debtor until I’ve earned it. Will that content you?”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 390
