Captain Blood

by Rafael Sabatini

  CHAPTER VIII. SPANIARDS

  The stately ship that had been allowed to sail so leisurely intoCarlisle Bay under her false colours was a Spanish privateer, coming topay off some of the heavy debt piled up by the predaceous Brethren ofthe Coast, and the recent defeat by the Pride of Devon of two treasuregalleons bound for Cadiz. It happened that the galleon which escaped ina more or less crippled condition was commanded by Don Diego de Espinosay Valdez, who was own brother to the Spanish Admiral Don Miguel deEspinosa, and who was also a very hasty, proud, and hot-temperedgentleman.

  Galled by his defeat, and choosing to forget that his own conduct hadinvited it, he had sworn to teach the English a sharp lesson which theyshould remember. He would take a leaf out of the book of Morgan andthose other robbers of the sea, and make a punitive raid upon an Englishsettlement. Unfortunately for himself and for many others, his brotherthe Admiral was not at hand to restrain him when for this purpose hefitted out the Cinco Llagas at San Juan de Porto Rico. He chose forhis objective the island of Barbados, whose natural strength was apt torender her defenders careless. He chose it also because thither had thePride of Devon been tracked by his scouts, and he desired a measure ofpoetic justice to invest his vengeance. And he chose a moment when therewere no ships of war at anchor in Carlisle Bay.

  He had succeeded so well in his intentions that he had aroused nosuspicion until he saluted the fort at short range with a broadside oftwenty guns.

  And now the four gaping watchers in the stockade on the headland beheldthe great ship creep forward under the rising cloud of smoke,her mainsail unfurled to increase her steering way, and go aboutclose-hauled to bring her larboard guns to bear upon the unready fort.

  With the crashing roar of that second broadside, Colonel Bishop awokefrom stupefaction to a recollection of where his duty lay. In the townbelow drums were beating frantically, and a trumpet was bleating, asif the peril needed further advertising. As commander of the BarbadosMilitia, the place of Colonel Bishop was at the head of his scantytroops, in that fort which the Spanish guns were pounding into rubble.

  Remembering it, he went off at the double, despite his bulk and theheat, his negroes trotting after him.

  Mr. Blood turned to Jeremy Pitt. He laughed grimly. "Now that," said he,"is what I call a timely interruption. Though what'll come of it," headded as an afterthought, "the devil himself knows."

  As a third broadside was thundering forth, he picked up the palmettoleaf and carefully replaced it on the back of his fellow-slave.

  And then into the stockade, panting and sweating, came Kent followed bybest part of a score of plantation workers, some of whom were black andall of whom were in a state of panic. He led them into the low whitehouse, to bring them forth again, within a moment, as it seemed, armednow with muskets and hangers and some of them equipped with bandoleers.

  By this time the rebels-convict were coming in, in twos and threes,having abandoned their work upon finding themselves unguarded and uponscenting the general dismay.

  Kent paused a moment, as his hastily armed guard dashed forth, to flingan order to those slaves.

  "To the woods!" he bade them. "Take to the woods, and lie close there,until this is over, and we've gutted these Spanish swine."

  On that he went off in haste after his men, who were to be added tothose massing in the town, so as to oppose and overwhelm the Spanishlanding parties.

  The slaves would have obeyed him on the instant but for Mr. Blood.

  "What need for haste, and in this heat?" quoth he. He was surprisinglycool, they thought. "Maybe there'll be no need to take to the woods atall, and, anyway, it will be time enough to do so when the Spaniards aremasters of the town."

  And so, joined now by the other stragglers, and numbering in all around score--rebels-convict all--they stayed to watch from theirvantage-ground the fortunes of the furious battle that was being wagedbelow.

  The landing was contested by the militia and by every islander capableof bearing arms with the fierce resoluteness of men who knew thatno quarter was to be expected in defeat. The ruthlessness of Spanishsoldiery was a byword, and not at his worst had Morgan or L'Ollonaisever perpetrated such horrors as those of which these Castiliangentlemen were capable.

  But this Spanish commander knew his business, which was more than couldtruthfully be said for the Barbados Militia. Having gained the advantageof a surprise blow, which had put the fort out of action, he soon showedthem that he was master of the situation. His guns turned now upon theopen space behind the mole, where the incompetent Bishop had marshalledhis men, tore the militia into bloody rags, and covered the landingparties which were making the shore in their own boats and in severalof those which had rashly gone out to the great ship before her identitywas revealed.

  All through the scorching afternoon the battle went on, the rattle andcrack of musketry penetrating ever deeper into the town to show thatthe defenders were being driven steadily back. By sunset two hundred andfifty Spaniards were masters of Bridgetown, the islanders were disarmed,and at Government House, Governor Steed--his gout forgotten in hispanic--supported by Colonel Bishop and some lesser officers, was beinginformed by Don Diego, with an urbanity that was itself a mockery, ofthe sum that would be required in ransom.

  For a hundred thousand pieces of eight and fifty head of cattle, DonDiego would forbear from reducing the place to ashes. And what timethat suave and courtly commander was settling these details with theapoplectic British Governor, the Spaniards were smashing and looting,feasting, drinking, and ravaging after the hideous manner of their kind.

  Mr. Blood, greatly daring, ventured down at dusk into the town. Whathe saw there is recorded by Jeremy Pitt to whom he subsequently relatedit--in that voluminous log from which the greater part of my narrativeis derived. I have no intention of repeating any of it here. It isall too loathsome and nauseating, incredible, indeed, that men howeverabandoned could ever descend such an abyss of bestial cruelty and lust.

  What he saw was fetching him in haste and white-faced out of that hellagain, when in a narrow street a girl hurtled into him, wild-eyed, herunbound hair streaming behind her as she ran. After her, laughing andcursing in a breath, came a heavy-booted Spaniard. Almost he was uponher, when suddenly Mr. Blood got in his way. The doctor had taken asword from a dead man's side some little time before and armed himselfwith it against an emergency.

  As the Spaniard checked in anger and surprise, he caught in the dusk thelivid gleam of that sword which Mr. Blood had quickly unsheathed.

  "Ah, perro ingles!" he shouted, and flung forward to his death.

  "It's hoping I am ye're in a fit state to meet your Maker," said Mr.Blood, and ran him through the body. He did the thing skilfully: withthe combined skill of swordsman and surgeon. The man sank in a hideousheap without so much as a groan.

  Mr. Blood swung to the girl, who leaned panting and sobbing against awall. He caught her by the wrist.

  "Come!" he said.

  But she hung back, resisting him by her weight. "Who are you?" shedemanded wildly.

  "Will ye wait to see my credentials?" he snapped. Steps were clatteringtowards them from beyond the corner round which she had fled fromthat Spanish ruffian. "Come," he urged again. And this time, reassuredperhaps by his clear English speech, she went without further questions.

  They sped down an alley and then up another, by great good fortunemeeting no one, for already they were on the outskirts of the town. Theywon out of it, and white-faced, physically sick, Mr. Blood dragged heralmost at a run up the hill towards Colonel Bishop's house. He told herbriefly who and what he was, and thereafter there was no conversationbetween them until they reached the big white house. It was all indarkness, which at least was reassuring. If the Spaniards had reachedit, there would be lights. He knocked, but had to knock again and yetagain before he was answered. Then it was by a voice from a windowabove.

  "Who is there?" The voice was Miss Bishop's, a little tremulous, butunmistakably her own.

 
Mr. Blood almost fainted in relief. He had been imagining theunimaginable. He had pictured her down in that hell out of which he hadjust come. He had conceived that she might have followed her uncle intoBridgetown, or committed some other imprudence, and he turned cold fromhead to foot at the mere thought of what might have happened to her.

  "It is I--Peter Blood," he gasped.

  "What do you want?"

  It is doubtful whether she would have come down to open. For at sucha time as this it was no more than likely that the wretched plantationslaves might be in revolt and prove as great a danger as the Spaniards.But at the sound of her voice, the girl Mr. Blood had rescued peered upthrough the gloom.

  "Arabella!" she called. "It is I, Mary Traill."

  "Mary!" The voice ceased above on that exclamation, the head waswithdrawn. After a brief pause the door gaped wide. Beyond it inthe wide hall stood Miss Arabella, a slim, virginal figure in white,mysteriously revealed in the gleam of a single candle which she carried.

  Mr. Blood strode in followed by his distraught companion, who, fallingupon Arabella's slender bosom, surrendered herself to a passion oftears. But he wasted no time.

  "Whom have you here with you? What servants?" he demanded sharply.

  The only male was James, an old negro groom.

  "The very man," said Blood. "Bid him get out horses. Then away with youto Speightstown, or even farther north, where you will be safe. Here youare in danger--in dreadful danger."

  "But I thought the fighting was over..." she was beginning, pale andstartled.

  "So it is. But the deviltry's only beginning. Miss Traill will tell youas you go. In God's name, madam, take my word for it, and do as I bidyou."

  "He... he saved me," sobbed Miss Traill.

  "Saved you?" Miss Bishop was aghast. "Saved you from what, Mary?"

  "Let that wait," snapped Mr. Blood almost angrily. "You've all the nightfor chattering when you're out of this, and away beyond their reach.Will you please call James, and do as I say--and at once!"

  "You are very peremptory...."

  "Oh, my God! I am peremptory! Speak, Miss Trail!, tell her whether I'vecause to be peremptory."

  "Yes, yes," the girl cried, shuddering. "Do as he says--Oh, for pity'ssake, Arabella."

  Miss Bishop went off, leaving Mr. Blood and Miss Traill alone again.

  "I... I shall never forget what you did, sir," said she, through herdiminishing tears. She was a slight wisp of a girl, a child, no more.

  "I've done better things in my time. That's why I'm here," said Mr.Blood, whose mood seemed to be snappy.

  She didn't pretend to understand him, and she didn't make the attempt.

  "Did you... did you kill him?" she asked, fearfully.

  He stared at her in the flickering candlelight. "I hope so. It is veryprobable, and it doesn't matter at all," he said. "What matters is thatthis fellow James should fetch the horses." And he was stamping off toaccelerate these preparations for departure, when her voice arrestedhim.

  "Don't leave me! Don't leave me here alone!" she cried in terror.

  He paused. He turned and came slowly back. Standing above her he smiledupon her.

  "There, there! You've no cause for alarm. It's all over now. You'll beaway soon--away to Speightstown, where you'll be quite safe."

  The horses came at last--four of them, for in addition to James who wasto act as her guide, Miss Bishop had her woman, who was not to be leftbehind.

  Mr. Blood lifted the slight weight of Mary Traill to her horse, thenturned to say good-bye to Miss Bishop, who was already mounted. Hesaid it, and seemed to have something to add. But whatever it was, itremained unspoken. The horses started, and receded into the sapphirestarlit night, leaving him standing there before Colonel Bishop's door.The last he heard of them was Mary Traill's childlike voice calling backon a quavering note--

  "I shall never forget what you did, Mr. Blood. I shall never forget."

  But as it was not the voice he desired to hear, the assurance broughthim little satisfaction. He stood there in the dark watching thefireflies amid the rhododendrons, till the hoofbeats had faded. Then hesighed and roused himself. He had much to do. His journey into the townhad not been one of idle curiosity to see how the Spaniards conductedthemselves in victory. It had been inspired by a very different purpose,and he had gained in the course of it all the information he desired. Hehad an extremely busy night before him, and must be moving.

  He went off briskly in the direction of the stockade, where hisfellow-slaves awaited him in deep anxiety and some hope.