«Who are you?» she asked abruptly. «What are you, you devil, who have destroyed me and yet torment me?»
«I am your saviour, not your destroyer. Your husband, for his own sake, shall be left to suppose, as all have been led to suppose, that you were violently carried off. He will receive you back with relief of his own anguish and with tenderness, and make amends to you for all that the poor fool will fancy you have suffered.»
She laughed on a note of hysteria.
«Tenderness! Tenderness in my husband! If he had ever been tender I should not be where I now am.» And suddenly, to his surprise, she was moved to explain, to exculpate herself. «I was married to a cold, gross, stupid, cruel animal. That is Monsieur de Coulevain, a fool who has squandered his possessions and is forced to accept a command in these raw barbarous colonies to which he has dragged me.
«Oh, you think the worst of me, of course. You account me just a light woman. But you shall know the truth.
«At the height of my disillusion some few months after my marriage, Don Juan de la Fuente came to us at Pau, where we lived, for my husband is a Gascon. My Don Juan was travelling in France. We loved each other from our first meeting. He saw my unhappiness, which was plain to all. He urged me to fly to Spain with him, and I would to Heaven I had yielded then, and so put an end to misery. Foolishly I resisted. A sense of duty kept me faithful to my vows. I dismissed him. Since then my cup of misery and shame has overflowed, and when a letter from him was brought to me here at Basseterre on the outbreak of war with Spain, to show me that his fond, loyal, noble heart had not forgotten, I answered him, and in my despair I bade him come for me whenever he would.»
She paused a moment, looking at Captain Blood with tragic eyes from which the tears were flowing.
«Now, sir, you know precisely what you have done, what havoc you have made.»
Blood's expression had lost some of its sternness. His voice, as he answered her, assumed a gentler note.
«The havoc exists only in your mind, madame. The change which you conceived to be from hell to heaven would have been from hell to deeper hell. You did not know this man, this loyal, noble heart, this Don Juan de la Fuente. You were taken by the external glitter of him. But it was the glitter, I tell you of decay, for at the core the man was rotten, and in his hands your fate would have been infamy.»
«Do you mend your case or mine by maligning the man you've murdered?»
«Malign him? Nay, madame. Proof of what I say is under my hand. You were in Basseterre to–day. You know something of the bloodshed, the slaughter of almost defenceless men, the dreadful violence to women…»
Faintly she interrupted him. «These things…in the way of war…»
«The way of war?» he roared. «Madame, undeceive yourself. Look truth boldly in the face though it condemn you both. Of what consequence Mariegalante to Spain? And, having been taken, is it held? War served your lover as a pretext. He let loose his dreadful soldiery upon the ill–defended place, solely so that he might answer your invitation. Men who to–day have been wantonly butchered, and unfortunate women who have suffered brutal violence, would now be sleeping tranquilly in their beds but for you and your evil lover. But for you —»
She interrupted him. She had covered her face with her hands while he was speaking, and sat rocking herself and moaning feebly. Now suddenly she uncovered her face again, and he saw that her eyes were fierce.
«No more!» she commanded, and stood up. «I'll hear no more. It's false! False what you say! You distort things to justify your own wicked deed.»
He considered her grimly with those cold, penetrating eyes of his.
«Your kind,» he said slowly, «will always believe what it chooses to believe. I do not think that I need pity you too much. But since I know that I have distorted nothing, I am content that expiation now awaits you. You shall choose the form of it, madame. Shall I leave you to these Spanish gentlemen, or will you come with me to your husband?»
She looked at him, her eyes distraught, her bosom in tumult. She began to plead with him. Awhile he listened; then he cut her short.
«Madame, I am not the arbiter of your fate. You have shaped it for yourself. I but point out the only two roads it leaves you free to tread.»
«How…how can you take me back to Basseterre?» she asked him presently.
He told her, and without waiting for her consent, which he knew could not be withheld, he made swift preparation. He flung some provisions into a napkin, took a skin of wine, and a little cask of water, and by a rope which he fetched from his state–room lowered these things to the pinnace, which was again in tow, and which he drew under the counter of the galleon.
Next he lashed the shortened tow–rope to a cleat on one of the stanchions, then summoned her to make with him the airy passage down that rope.
It appalled her. But he conquered her fears, and when she had come to stand beside him, he seized the rope and swung out on it and slid down a little way to make room for her above him. At his command, although almost sick with terror, she grasped the rope and placed her feet on his shoulders. Then she slid down between the rope and him, until his hold embraced her knees and held her firmly.
Gently now, foot by foot, they began to descend. From the decks above came the sound of voices raised in song. The men were singing some Spanish scrannel in chorus.
At last his toe was on the gunwale of the pinnace. He worked her nose forward with that foot, sufficiently to enable him to plant the other firmly in the foresheets. After that it was an easy matter to step backwards, drawing her after him whilst still she clung to the rope. Thus he hauled the boat a little farther under the counter until he could take his companion about the waist and gently lower her.
After that he attacked the tow–rope with a knife and sawed it swiftly through. The galleon with its glowing sternport and the three great golden poop lamps sped serenely on close–hauled to the breeze, leaving them gently oscillating in her wake.
When he had recovered breath he bestowed Madame de Coulevain in the sternsheets, then hoisting the sail and trimming it, he broached to, and with his eyes on the brilliant stars in the tropical sky he steered a course which, with the wind astern, should bring them to Basseterre before sunrise.
In the sternsheets the woman was now gently weeping. With her, expiation had begun, as it does when it is possible to sin no more.
IX — THE GRATITUDE OF MONSIEUR DE COULEVAIN
All through the tepid night the pinnace, gently driven by the southerly breeze, ploughed steadily through a calm sea, which after moonrise became of liquid silver.
At the tiller sat Captain Blood. Beside him in the stern–sheets crouched the woman, who between silences was now whimpering, now vituperative, now apologetic. Of the gratitude which he accounted due to him he perceived no sign. But he was a tolerant, understanding man, and he did not, therefore, account himself aggrieved. Madame de Coulevain's case, however regarded, was a hard one; and she had little, after all, for which to be thankful to Fate or to Man.
Her mixed and alternating emotions did not surprise him.
He perceived quite clearly the sources of the hatred that rang in her voice whenever in the darkness she upbraided him and that glared in her pallid face when the dawn at last began to render it visible.
They were then within a couple of miles of land: a green flat coast with a single great mountain towering in the background. To larboard a tall ship was sweeping past them, steering for the bay ahead, and in her lines and rig Captain Blood read her English nationality. From her furled topsails he assumed that her master, evidently strange to these waters, was cautiously groping his way in. And this was confirmed by the seaman visible on the starboard forechains, leaning far out to take soundings. His chanting voice reached them across the sunlit waters as he told the fathoms.
Madame de Coulevain, who latterly had fallen into a drowsy stupor, roused herself to stare across at the frigate, aglow in the golden glory of the risen sun.
«No need f
or fear, madame. She is not Spanish.»
«Fear?» She glared at him, blear–eyed from sleeplessness and weeping. She was a handsome woman, golden–headed and built on the generous lines of Hebe. Her full lips writhed into bitterness. «What have I to fear more than the fate you thrust upon me?»
«I, madame? I thrust no fate upon you. You are overtaken by the fate your own actions have invited.»
Fiercely she interrupted him. «Have I invited this? That I should return to my husband?»
Captain Blood sighed in weariness. «Are we to have the argument all over again? Must I remind you that yourself you refused the only alternative, which was to remain at the mercy of those Spanish gallants on that Spanish ship? For the rest, your husband shall be left to suppose that you were carried off against your will.»
«It if had not been for you, you assassin…»
«If it had not been for me, madame, your fate would have been even worse than you tell me that it is going to be.»
«Nothing could be worse! Nothing! This man who has brought me out to these savage lands because, discredited and debt–ridden as he is, there was no longer a place for him at home, is…Oh, but why do I talk to you? Why do I try to explain to one who obstinately refuses to understand, to one who desires only to blame?»
«Madame, I do not desire to blame. I desire that you should blame yourself, for the horror you brought upon Basseterre. If you will accept whatever comes as an expiation, you may find some peace of mind.»
«Peace of mind! Peace of mind!» Her scorn was fulminating.
He became sententious. «Expiation cleanses conscience. And when that has happened calm will return to your spirit.»
«You preach to me! You! A filibuster, a sea–robber! And you preach of things you do not understand. I owe no expiation. I have done no wrong. I was a desperate woman, hard–driven by a man who is a beast, a cruel drunken beast, a broken gamester without honour; not even honest. I took my only chance to save my soul. Was I to know that Don Juan was what you say he is? Do I know it even now?»
«Do you not?» he asked her. «Did you see the ruin and desolation wantonly wrought in Basseterre, the horrors that he loosed his men to perpetrate, and do you still doubt his nature? And can you contemplate that havoc wrought so as to give you to your lover's arms, and still protest that you did no wrong? That, madame, is the offence that calls for expiation; not anything that may lie between yourself and your husband, or yourself and Don Juan.»
Her mind refused admission to a conviction which it dared not harbour. Therefore she ranted on. Blood ceased to listen. He gave his attention to the sail; hauled it a little closer, so that the craft heeled over and headed straight for the bay.
It was an hour later when they brought up at the mole. A longboat was alongside, manned by English sailors from the frigate which in the meantime had come to anchor in the roadstead.
Odd groups of men and women, white and black, idling, cowed, at the waterside, with the horror of yesterday's events still heavy upon them, stared round–eyed at Madame de Coulevain as she was handed from the boat by her stalwart, grim–faced escort, in his crumpled coat of silver–laced grey camlett and black periwig that was rather out of curl.
The little mob moved forward in wonder, slowly at first, then with quickening steps, to crowd about the unsuspected author of their woes with questions of welcome and thanksgiving for this miracle of her return, of her deliverance, as they accounted it.
Blood waited, grim and silent, his eyes upon the sparse town which showed yesterday's ugly wounds as yet unscarred. Houses displayed shattered doors and broken windows, whilst here and there a heap of ashes smouldered where a house had stood. Pieces of broken furniture lay about in the open. From the belfry of the little church standing amid the acacias in the open square came the mournful note of a passing–bell. Within the walled enclosure about it there was an ominous activity, and negroes could be seen at work there with pick and shovel.
Captain Blood's cold blue eyes played swiftly over all this and more. Then, almost roughly, he extricated the lady from that little mob of stricken questioning sympathisers who little guessed to what extent she was the author of their woes. At once conducted and conducting, he made his way up the gently rising ground. They passed a party of British sailors filling water–casks at a fountain which had been contrived by the damming of a brook. They passed the church with its busy graveyard. They passed a company of militia at drill; men in blue coats with red facings who had been hurriedly brought over by Colonel de Coulevain from Les Carmes after the harm was done.
Delayed on the way by others whom they met and who must stop to cry out in wonder at sight of Madame de Coulevain, accompanied by this tall, stern stranger, they came at last by a wide gateway into a luxuriant garden, and by an avenue of palms to a long, low house of stone and timber.
There were no signs of damage here. The Spaniards who had yesterday invaded the place, if, indeed, they had invaded it, had wrought no other mischief than to carry off the Governor's lady. The elderly negro who admitted them broke into shrill cries upon beholding his dishevelled mistress in her crumpled gown of flowered silk. He laughed and wept at once. He uttered scraps of prayer. He capered like a dog. He caught her hand and slobbered kisses on it.
«You appear to be loved, madame,» said Captain Blood when at last they stood alone in the long dining–room.
«Of course that must surprise you,» she sneered, with that twist of her full lips which he had come to know.
The door of a connecting–room was abruptly flung open, and a tall, heavily–built man with prominent features and sallow, deeply–lined cheeks stood at gaze. His militia coat, of blue with red facings, was stiff with tarnished gold lace. His dark bloodshot eyes opened wide at sight of her. He turned pale under his tan.
«Antoinette!» he ejaculated. He came forward unsteadily and took her by the shoulders. «Is it really you? They told me…But where have you been since yesterday?»
«Where they told you I was, no doubt.» There was little in her tone besides weariness. «Fortunately, or unfortunately, this gentleman delivered me, and he has brought me safely back.»
«Fortunately or unfortunately?» he echoed, and scowled. His lip curled. The dislike of her in his eyes was not to be mistaken. He took his hands from her shoulders, and half turned to consider her companion. «This gentleman?» Then his glance darkened further. «A Spaniard?»
Captain Blood met the frown with a smile. «A Dutchman, sir,» he lied. But the rest of his tale was true. «By great good fortune I was aboard that Spanish ship, the Estremadura. I had been picked up by her at sea a few days before. I had access to the great cabin in which the Spanish commander had locked himself with Madame your wife. I interrupted his amorous intentions. In fact, I killed him with my hands.» And he added a brief account of how, thereafter, he had conveyed her from the galleon.
Monsieur de Coulevain swore profoundly to express his wonder; stood silently pondering the thing he had been told; then swore again. Blood accounted him a dull, brutish fellow whom any woman would be justified in leaving. If the Colonel felt any tenderness towards his wife, or thankfulness for her delivery from the dreadful fate to which he must suppose her to have been exposed, he kept the emotions to himself. He showed presently, however, that he could be emotional enough over the memory of yesterday's catastrophe. This Blood accounted reasonable until he came to perceive that the man's real concern was less with the sufferings of the people of Basseterre than with the possible consequences to himself when an account of his stewardship should come to be asked of him by the French Government.
Madame, her beauty sadly impaired by her pallor, her weariness and dishevelled condition, interrupted his lament, to recall him to the demands of common courtesy.
«You have not yet thanked this gentleman for the heroic service he has rendered us.»
Blood caught the sneer and perceived its double edge. At last he found it in his heart to pity her a little, to understand th
e despair which had driven her, reckless of what might betide others, so that she should escape from this boorish egotist.
Belatedly and clumsily M. de Coulevain expressed his thanks. When that was done, Madame took her leave of them. She confessed herself exhausted, and it was the old negro, who had remained in attendance in the background, who came forward to proffer his arm and to assist her. On the threshold a negro woman waited, all tenderness and solicitude, to put her weary mistress to bed.
Coulevain, heavy–eyed, watched her depart, and remained staring until Captain Blood's brisk voice aroused him.
«If you were to offer me some breakfast, sir, that would be a practical measure of repayment.»
Coulevain swore. «Death of my life! How negligent I am! These troubles, sir…the ruin of the town…the abduction of my wife…It is too much, sir. You'll understand. It discomposes a man. You forgive me, Monsieur…I have not the honour to know your name.»
«Vandermeer. Peter Vandermeer, at your service.»
And then another voice cut in, a voice that spoke French with a rasping English accent. «Are you quite sure that that is your name?»
Blood span round. On the threshold of the adjacent room from which Colonel de Coulevain had earlier issued stood now the stocky figure of a youngish man in a red coat that was laced with silver. In the plump, florid countenance Captain Blood recognized at a glance his old acquaintance Captain Macartney, who had been second in command at Antigua when some months before Captain Blood had slipped through the fingers of the British there. His momentary surprise at finding Macartney here was dispelled by remembrance of the English frigate which had passed him as they were approaching Basseterre.
The officer was smiling hatefully. «Good morning, Captain Blood. This time you have no buccaneers at your heels, no ships, no demi–cannons with which to intimidate us.»
So ominous was the tone, so clear its hint of the speaker's intention, that Blood's hand flew instinctively to his left side. The Englishman's smile became a laugh.
The Chronicles of Captain Blood cb-2 Page 19
