That gave the pirate pause. It brought him to an attempt at jocular bluster.
“Ye’ve as much need for threats as for jealousy, De Bernis. Jealousy! Faith, I ain’t likely to waste a thought on your whey-faced doxy. Pish, man. Ye’re just a silly laughingstock.” And to prove it he went off laughing, looking over his shoulder ever and anon to gather fresh impetus for his mirth from the spectacle of the uxorious Frenchman.
The girl sank back, pale and limp now that the strain was at an end. Monsieur de Bernis leaned over her. “I trust that animal did not unduly frighten you.”
“Thank God you came when you did.” She clutched his arm. “Do not leave me alone again while we are here. Promise me.”
“Be sure that I shall always be near. But I do not think that dog will recommence. He has had his warning.”
Monsieur de Bernis took too sanguine a view. Tom Leach was not the man to accept defeat in anything. Vanity, stupidity and brutality combined to swell his resentment. Such natures when vindictive will sacrifice all to that emotion. And so, in the few days that followed, whenever he met De Bernis — which was as rarely as De Bernis could make it — the captain would goad him with vile allusions. But the Frenchman met derision and insult with a jest until the captain gathered conviction that Monsieur de Bernis went rightly in dread of him.
Thus four days passed in which the crew toiled at the completion of their task upon the hull of the Black Swan.
ON THE morning of the fifth day something happened. Monsieur de Bernis was sitting with the major before Miss Priscilla’s tent, when his half-caste servant came through the palmetto trees that fringed the beach, in quest of him. He carried a telescope under his arm, and he came from a bluff on the northern side of the island, on the summit of which Sam had of late been daily unobtrusively stationed. As he stooped and muttered in his master’s ear, the Frenchman’s glance grew instantly keen. Silently he rose, took the telescope from his servant, and quietly departed toward the bluff.
He was absent for a couple of hours. When he returned he paused merely to bestow the telescope within the tent, then sauntered away toward the general encampment where the men were assembled for their midday meal.
Leach observed his approach with a lowering glance. He had been drinking as usual that morning and the rum inflamed his viciousness.
“Here’s our French kite taking his ease, whiles we sweat and toil in the sun. I vow the sight of him turns my stomach.”
Hogan at his side laid a restraining hand upon the captain’s brown muscular arm. “Quiet now, captain! Quiet! Let him have his head until he’s brought us to the plate fleet. Then ye may have your will o’ him and of his doxy too.”
There was an approving growl from the men about them, which might have served him as a warning. But Leach was never an easy man to curb. He could not guess that this morning Monsieur de Bernis was no longer disposed to meekness.
“He shall bare his back to the sun and lend a hand wi’ the rest of us.” The captain got up on that. “Hi, you!” he greeted De Bernis. “Peel off that coat, and take your share o’ the work, same as us. We want no fine gentlemen here. Time’s getting short.”
MONSIEUR DE BERNIS came to a halt within six paces of the pirate. His left hand rested easily on the pommel of his long rapier. His face in the shadow of his broad plumed hat was like a mask.
“Yes. Time is getting short. Your time in particular, captain. I marvel you don’t suspect it.”
Something ominous in his cold sneering tone took Leach aback. “What d’ye mean?” he growled. “Be plain, man.”
“Mean?” De Bernis made a long pause like a man considering his course. “Pardieu! I mean that I’ve had too much insolence from a dirty, drunken cutthroat. Is that plain, you son of a dog? Or shall I make it plainer?”
Not in years had any man so dared to address Tom Leach. He went pale in amazement. When, after a gasping, choking pause he found his tongue, it was to loose a volley of bloodcurdling obscenity in the trail of which came menaces.
“You French swine! It’s not only the coat shall come off you now. I’ll have the very hide off your mangy bones.” He waved his men on. “Make the dog fast.”
There was a sluggish reluctant stir to obey him, instantly checked by Monsieur de Bernis.
“Wait!” What he had to say would never have restrained them had he not prepared them for it by his earlier schooling. “Remember that the secret of the plate fleet is mine; that I am the only man who can lead you to that wealth of plate. Which of us is worthier following now? I, or this poor rat?”
THEY did remember. These ruffians cared too much for the delights which Monsieur de Bernis had made them taste in imagination, prematurely to destroy the man who was to lead them to the gold that should procure them. The captain, scarcely understanding their disobedience, and moved by it to a greater rage, whipped out his sword and leaped, fierce as a wildcat and as agile, upon Monsieur de Bernis.
But Monsieur de Bernis displayed a speed to match the captain’s. His rapier flashed forth to parry the murderous lunge, and his swift counter drove the captain back on guard. At the same moment his voice rang out.
“Give us air! Let him have what he seeks. I warned him that his time was short.”
Spitting and snarling in fury, Leach crouched, measuring his opponent with his beady, blood-injected eyes. Poised thus, he grew calm by instinct and from confidence in the skill with which it had thrilled him in the past to send many a tall fellow to his account. This rash fool should now be added to their number.
In exultation he sprang forward to lunge again. The blades ground together for a moment, then the captain found himself pressed and retreating before a dazzling, glittering point that seemed to be everywhere at once. In a queer surprised dismay he realised that he had met his master and he tasted the bitter cup of that knowledge which he had thrust upon so many. Too late he recalled fabulous stories of the swordsmanship of De Bernis.
His only hope now was that his men would intervene. But partly from indecision about the future, partly because their coarse fierce natures loved the spectacle of such a combat, they stood looking on with relish, leaving the issue to Fate and the combatants themselves.
ANOTHER spectator of whom the captain became aware in one of the pauses he made for breath, was the lady who was the true if unacknowledged source of this conflict. She stood in fascinated horror, compelled to look on by anxiety for the issue, which might be to leave her at the mercy of these savages.
She may have taken heart from the easy confidence which Monsieur de Bernis displayed. Seeing his opponent pause out of reach, he laughed at him. “Will you fight, captain? Or must I chase you round the island in this heat?”
It was enough to goad the other to resume. Realising that no intervention was to be expected, he flung desperately forward for a last supreme effort. He fought fiercely, savagely, his coppery face paling under its tan, the cold sweat gathering on his brow. And Monsieur de Bernis, as if to madden him utterly, laughed as he put aside a more than ordinarily hard-driven lunge. All the while he spared himself, scarcely moving from the spot on which he had taken his first stand, until the captain’s strength, recklessly spent, began visibly to fail.
“Allons!” said De Bernis. “It is time to make an end. So.” He parried. “So.” He encircled the opposing blade. “And so.” He drove home his point well above the captain’s guard, passing the blade through him from side to side.
Standing over Tom Leach as he lay coughing out his evil life upon the sands, Monsieur de Bernis shook his head.
“Too fine an end for such as you, my captain.”
And then as he looked up and straight ahead at the crowd of rough men who faced him, the expression of his countenance was suddenly changed by something that he beheld beyond them.
“What are these?” he cried, on a sharp note, and pointed with his sword.
THE ruffians swung round to his indication, and there was a general outcry, followed by a confused,
excited chattering. Three tall ships were coming into view at the mouth of the cove. They were taking in sail as they advanced, and across the water came the creak of windlass and the clatter of anchor chains. From each maintruck floated the Union Jack.
“Pardieu!” swore Monsieur de Bernis. “Ships of the Jamaica squadron! We’ve Morgan on our hands.”
Terror and fury spread in the souls of those men caught there with their ship careened, immobile and helpless. Seeking a scapegoat they turned on De Bernis. It was he who had brought them to this place where they were now trapped.
“You fools,” flung back De Bernis contemptuously, “was I in command of you? Was I your master here? It is this dead cutthroat who has betrayed you by his improvidence. He should have built a fort on the headland and emplaced his guns to command the entrance. But the fool had no thought for anything but rum.”
A gun boomed. There was a white cauliflower of smoke on the flank of one of the ships, and splinters flew from the bulwarks of the Centaur where she rode at anchor.
And while Morgan’s ships were engaged in sinking her as a preliminary, hell was raging about De Bernis. It raged until at last he found a way to calm those ruffians.
“Listen, now. If we can’t fight, we can bargain. It’s Tom Leach, Morgan wants. Hasn’t he offered five hundred pounds for his head? He may have that head now, in exchange for our own lives and freedom to depart. That is our offer. Leave this to me. Trust De Bernis. He’ll bring you off with the honours of war.”
First astonishment struck them silent. Then followed cheers to hail this heaven-sent inspiration.
“But who’s to carry the offer?” wondered Hogan. “Which of us would be safe in Morgan’s hands?”
“Ah!” Momentarily De Bernis was at fault. Then the fertility of his invention asserted itself. “Madame de Bernis,” he cried in a flash of genius. “They’ll respect a woman’s life. Her brother there can pull her out to the flagship.”
WHETHER they believed or not that the woman and her brother would be respected, they were glad enough to adopt the proposal, and so Miss Priscilla and the major found themselves abruptly and unexpectedly on their way to safety in the cockboat under a flag of truce, as the emissaries of the pirate crew.
Miss Priscilla’s eyes were moist. “It was noble of him so to contrive for me. It justifies all my steady faith in him.”
But the major, toiling and sweating at the oars, shared none of her emotion.
“His nobility is rooted in concern for his own skin,” he grumbled.
Aboard the trim deck of the Royal Charles, they were received by a middle-aged, overdressed man of an almost obese habit of body. His yellow fleshy face, adorned by a pair of long drooping moustaches, was coarse and unprepossessing. He scowled astonishment to behold a lady climbing the accommodation ladder. When he had heard her story, breathlessly delivered, his lips writhed under those drooping moustaches.
“YOU are well delivered, madam,” he said curtly, in a gruff voice. Without more he beckoned an officer to his side, and rapped out an order. “Sharples, take a dozen men and go ashore under a white flag. Tell them that before I’ll discuss terms with them, I demand that in addition to Tom Leach they deliver up to me this fellow De Bernis.”
Miss Priscilla went white. “Sir — sir—” she stammered.
The stout gentleman waved the officer away peremptorily, and turned to hear her.
“I — I owe so much Monsieur de Bernis,” she pleaded. “He has behaved so gallantly — so gallantly—”
The gentleman laughed a deep, throaty laugh that made her shudder.
“Oh, ah! To be sure! He can always be depended upon for that. Vastly gallant fellows, these Frenchmen.” He turned his back upon her, and strode off, bawling for boatswain and gunner.
She dared not follow him. She must postpone her pleading until Monsieur de Bernis was brought aboard, if indeed the buccaneers were so cowardly as to surrender him. Surrender him they did as she beheld to her dismay from the bulwarks, whence with the major beside her she watched events.
The returning cockboat came alongside, and up the accommodation ladder climbed Monsieur de Bernis, followed by his half-caste servant, who carried something wrapped in sailcloth.
She was almost afraid to look into Monsieur de Bernis’ face when he stepped on board. Yet when she did look, she beheld him smiling and debonair as ever.
“How brave he is! How gallantly he meets his fate!” she sighed to the major.
THE large gaudy man who commanded there rolled forward on his thick legs to receive this prisoner. He was scowling.
“Where is Leach?” he trumpeted.
Monsieur de Bernis took the bundle from the hands of Sam, and cast it at the other’s feet.
“There’s his head. That was all I promised you, Sir Henry. All that you asked for.”
Sir Henry Morgan touched the grim bundle with his foot.
“You’ve been as good as your word, De Bernis.”
“It is my habit. It needs a thief to catch a thief, as Major Sands thinks they knew who made you governor of Jamaica. And Fate has helped me. It was not even necessary to seek Leach out as I intended. He just blundered across my path. The rest was easy. But you are three days late at the rendezvous, and for three days, until you hove in sight this morning, I’ve been in mortal anxiety and forced to endure that dog’s abominable insults.”
Morgan, his feet wide and his arms akimbo, stood regarding him. “Ye’d be in mortal anxiety now, I should say, but for my stratagem to bring you off: my demand that they should give you up. What’s to be done with those ruffians?”
“Bid them haul their guns to the bluff there and drop them into the sea,” said De Bernis. “When that’s done, without leader and without arms, there’s an end to them as filibusters.”
He turned to meet the round, staring eyes of Miss Priscilla and Major Sands. He doffed his hat to them and bowed.
“Alas!” he said. “You are not yet for home. You will first have to endure a voyage to Jamaica. But the circumstances will be happier, and in these I trust our acquaintance will improve.”
It did. But the outcome was not at all to the liking or advantage of Major Sands.
THE END
FORBIDDEN LOVER
I
THE stately Marcantonio frowned his disapproval of his younger brother.
“For no more than a whim, a caprice, you will confront this dreadful danger.”
But Ottavio Sagrado merely laughed. Laughter came readily to him. “Have you never realized that the only possessions of which we are fully conscious, which we fully value, are those which are held precariously? We never really know the thrill of living until we place life in danger.”
And there you have an honest expression of his nature: Ebullient, careless, romantic, loving phrases as much as he loved life, and loving beauty wherever and however met. As a result Ottavio was, himself, lovable, rather for these very qualities in him than for the undeniable attractions of his person.
He was a brave, lively figure as he stood revealed in the late-spring sunshine which poured through the tall windows of that handsome room in the Casa Veneta, as these exiles from the Most Serene Republic had named the palace which they had made their own in Pisa. From his fastidiously clubbed red-brown hair to the scarlet heels and paste buckles on his shoes of black lacquered leather, he was elegance incarnate. His whaleboned coat of apricot brocade, above black satin smalls and black silk stockings, had been made by Acier, the Paris tailor who enjoyed the patronage of the Dauphin.
Marcantonio, the elder brother by some five years, a man approaching thirty, matched him in fastidiousness, as did their sister Flavia, who was leaning upon the back of Marcantonio’s chair. Like her brothers she was tall, and like them she was crowned with the same red-brown hair of a slightly darker shade than that which Titian loved to paint.
The spacious, lofty room, with its mosaic floor and frescoed ceiling, its portraits, marbles and gilded furniture, supplied a
proper setting for them and announced that the sybaritism brought from Venice by their banished grandfather still endured in this the third generation since that involuntary exile.
Ottavio continued: “To me it is inconceivable that you should not share this desire of mine to see our Venice.”
“It happens,” said Marcantonio, “that I love my head. It has been accounted by several men and women of taste a head of some beauty. Fraschini implores me to let him paint it.”
Flavia joined in: “Take that to heart, Ottavio. Your own head looks better on your shoulders than it will look between the Columns of the Piazzetta. You are merely inquisitive.”
“Even that,” Ottavio assured them, “were a nobler emotion than this apathy, this indifference of yours toward the cradle of our race. And such a cradle! A city that is the eighth wonder of the world, one of the marvels of the ages. A city in which honoured forbears of ours have reigned as doges. If you will not share my adventure, Marco, at least you should extend me a sympathetic understanding of my feelings.”
“Oh, all the sympathy you please. But no understanding. If you persist I shall understand still less and perhaps come to sympathize still more. As Flavia says: Your head will look less decorative when it is exhibited between the Columns of St. Mark’s. Take heed, child.”
“I never yet took heed of bogies.”
“This is no bogy. The Republic is intransigent where a ban is broken. The penalty is death.”
“But first there must be discovery.” Ottavio was impatient. “I shall travel in another name. None knows me in Venice.”
“You think that will insure your safety? Poor fool, Ottavio. You should inform yourself better of how matters are conducted in that sweet cradle of our race. The Most Serene Republic watches with the eyes of Argus, and strikes with the hands of Briareus. The spies of the Inquisitors of State are everywhere, and strangers never fail to engage their close attention.”
“It is a madness,” Flavia told him in her languidly intolerant manner. “Pray the good God for sense, Ottavio, and dismiss the thought of so silly an adventure.”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 549
