The mystery of the succour that had come at the eleventh hour to wreak vengeance upon the Spaniards, and to preserve for the island the extortionate ransom of a hundred thousand pieces of eight, remained yet to be probed. That the Cinco Llagas was now in friendly hands could no longer be doubted after the proofs it had given. But who, the people of Bridgetown asked one another, were the men in possession of her, and whence had they come? The only possible assumption ran the truth very closely. A resolute party of islanders must have got aboard during the night, and seized the ship. It remained to ascertain the precise identity of these mysterious saviours, and do them fitting honour.
Upon this errand — Governor Steed's condition not permitting him to go in person — went Colonel Bishop as the Governor's deputy, attended by two officers.
As he stepped from the ladder into the vessel's waist, the Colonel beheld there, beside the main hatch, the four treasure-chests, the contents of one of which had been contributed almost entirely by himself. It was a gladsome spectacle, and his eyes sparkled in beholding it.
Ranged on either side, athwart the deck, stood a score of men in two well-ordered files, with breasts and backs of steel, polished Spanish morions on their heads, overshadowing their faces, and muskets ordered at their sides.
Colonel Bishop could not be expected to recognize at a glance in these upright, furbished, soldierly figures the ragged, unkempt scarecrows that but yesterday had been toiling in his plantations. Still less could he be expected to recognize at once the courtly gentleman who advanced to greet him — a lean, graceful gentleman, dressed in the Spanish fashion, all in black with silver lace, a gold-hilted sword dangling beside him from a gold embroidered baldrick, a broad castor with a sweeping plume set above carefully curled ringlets of deepest black.
'Be welcome aboard the Cinco Llagas, Colonel, darling,' a voice vaguely familiar addressed the planter. 'We've made the best of the Spaniards' wardrobe in honour of this visit, though it was scarcely yourself we had dared hope to expect. You find yourself among friends — old friends of yours, all.' The Colonel stared in stupefaction. Mr. Blood tricked out in all this splendour — indulging therein his natural taste — his face carefully shaven, his hair as carefully dressed, seemed transformed into a younger man. The fact is he looked no more than the thirty-three years he counted to his age.
'Peter Blood!' It was an ejaculation of amazement. Satisfaction followed swiftly. 'Was it you, then...?'
'Myself it was — myself and these, my good friends and yours.' Mr. Blood tossed back the fine lace from his wrist, to wave a hand towards the file of men standing to attention there.
The Colonel looked more closely. 'Gad's my life!' he crowed on a note of foolish jubilation. 'And it was with these fellows that you took the Spaniard and turned the tables on those dogs! Oddswounds! It was heroic!'
'Heroic, is it? Bedad, it's epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of my genius.'
Colonel Bishop sat himself down on the hatch-coaming, took off his broad hat, and mopped his brow.
'Y'amaze me!' he gasped. 'On my soul, y'amaze me! To have recovered the treasure and to have seized this fine ship and all she'll hold! It will be something to set against the other losses we have suffered. As Gad's my life, you deserve well for this.'
'I am entirely of your opinion.'
'Damme! You all deserve well, and damme, you shall find me grateful.'
'That's as it should be,' said Mr. Blood. 'The question is how well we deserve, and how grateful shall we find you?'
Colonel Bishop considered him. There was a shadow of surprise in his face.
'Why — his excellency shall write home an account of your exploit, and maybe some portion of your sentences shall be remitted.'
'The generosity of King James is well known,' sneered Nathaniel Hagthorpe, who was standing by, and amongst the ranged rebels-convict some one ventured to laugh.
Colonel Bishop started up. He was pervaded by the first pang of uneasiness. It occurred to him that all here might not be as friendly as appeared.
'And there's another matter,' Mr. Blood resumed. 'There's a matter of a flogging that's due to me. Ye're a man of your word in such matters, Colonel — if not perhaps in others — and ye said, I think, that ye'd not leave a square inch of skin on my back.'
The planter waved the matter aside. Almost it seemed to offend him.
'Tush! Tush! After this splendid deed of yours, do you suppose I can be thinking of such things?'
'I'm glad ye feel like that about it. But I'm thinking it's mighty lucky for me the Spaniards didn't come to- day instead of yesterday, or it's in the same plight as Jeremy Pitt I'd be this minute. And in that case where was the genius that would have turned the tables on these rascally Spaniards?'
'Why speak of it now?'
Mr. Blood resumed: 'ye'll please to understand that I must, Colonel, darling. Ye've worked a deal of wickedness and cruelty in your time, and I want this to be a lesson to you, a lesson that ye'll remember — for the sake of others who may come after us. There's Jeremy up there in the round-house with a back that's every colour of the rainbow; and the poor lad'll not be himself again for a month. And if it hadn't been for the Spaniards maybe it's dead he'd be by now, and maybe myself with him.'
Hagthorpe lounged forward. He was a fairly tall, vigorous man with a clear-cut, attractive face which in itself announced his breeding.
'Why will you be wasting words on the hog?' wondered that sometime officer in the Royal Navy. 'Fling him overboard and have done with him.'
The Colonel's eyes bulged in his head. 'What the devil do you mean?' he blustered.
'It's the lucky man ye are entirely, Colonel, though ye don't guess the source of your good fortune.'
And now another intervened — the brawny, one-eyed Wolverstone, less mercifully disposed than his more gentlemanly fellow-convict.
'String him up from the yardarm,' he cried, his deep voice harsh and angry, and more than one of the slaves standing to their arms made echo.
Colonel Bishop trembled. Mr. Blood turned. He was quite calm.
'If you please, Wolverstone,' said he, 'I conduct affairs in my own way. That is the pact. You'll please to remember it.' His eyes looked along the ranks, making it plain that he addressed them all. 'I desire that Colonel Bishop should have his life. One reason is that I require him as a hostage. If ye insist on hanging him, ye'll have to hang me with him, or in the alternative I'll go ashore.'
He paused. There was no answer. But they stood hang-dog and half-mutinous before him, save Hagthorpe, who shrugged and smiled wearily.
Mr. Blood resumed: 'Ye'll please to understand that aboard a ship there is one captain. So.' He swung again to the startled Colonel. 'Though I promise you your life, I must — as you've heard — keep you aboard as a hostage for the good behaviour of Governor Steed and what's left of the fort until we put to sea.'
'Until you...' Horror prevented Colonel Bishop from echoing the remainder of that incredible speech.
'Just so,' said Peter Blood, and he turned to the officers who had accompanied the Colonel. 'The boat is waiting, gentlemen. You'll have heard what I said. Convey it with my compliments to his excellency.'
'But, sir...' one of them began.
'There is no more to be said, gentlemen. My name is Blood — Captain Blood, if you please, of this ship the Cinco Llagas, taken as a prize of war from Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez, who is my prisoner aboard. You are to understand that I have turned the tables on more than the Spaniards. There's the ladder. You'll find it more convenient than being heaved over the side, which is what'll happen if you linger.'
They went, though not without some hustling, regardless of the bellowings of Colonel Bishop, whose monstrous rage was fanned by terror at finding himself at the mercy of these men of whose cause to hate him he was very fully conscious.
A half-dozen of them, apart from Jeremy Pitt, who was utterly incapacitated for the present, possessed a superficial knowledge of seamanship. Hagthorpe, although he had been a fighting officer, untrained in navigation, knew how to handle a ship, and under his directions they set about getting under way.
The anchor catted, and the mainsail unfurled, they stood out for the open before a gentle breeze, without interference from the fort.
