Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini (paper ebook reader txt) 📕

before such callous impudence. “And what of the lives you have destroyed in wanton butchery? By God, man, they shall cost you dear.”

Don Miguel’s smile persisted. “It is possible. All things are possible. Meantime it is your own lives that will cost you dear. Colonel Bishop is a rich man; and you, milord, are no doubt also rich. I will consider and fix your ransom.”

“So that you’re just the damned murderous pirate I was supposing you,” stormed his lordship. “And you have the impudence to call yourself the Admiral of the Navies of the Catholic King? We shall see what your Catholic King will have to say to it.”

The Admiral ceased to smile. He revealed something of the rage that had eaten into his brain. “You do not understand,” he said. “It is that I treat you English heretic dogs just as you English heretic dogs have treated Spaniards upon the seas⁠—you robbers and thieves out of hell! I have the honesty to do it in my own name⁠—but you, you perfidious beasts, you send your Captain Bloods, your Hagthorpes, and your Morgans against us and disclaim responsibility for what they do. Like Pilate, you wash your hands.” He laughed savagely. “Let Spain play the part of Pilate. Let her disclaim responsibility for me, when your ambassador at the Escurial shall go whining to the Supreme Council of this act of piracy by Don Miguel de Espinosa.”

“Captain Blood and the rest are not admirals of England!” cried Lord Julian.

“Are they not? How do I know? How does Spain know? Are you not liars all, you English heretics?”

“Sir!” Lord Julian’s voice was harsh as a rasp, his eyes flashed. Instinctively he swung a hand to the place where his sword habitually hung. Then he shrugged and sneered: “Of course,” said he, “it sorts with all I have heard of Spanish honour and all that I have seen of yours that you should insult a man who is unarmed and your prisoner.”

The Admiral’s face flamed scarlet. He half raised his hand to strike. And then, restrained, perhaps, by the very words that had cloaked the retorting insult, he turned on his heel abruptly and went out without answering.

XIX The Meeting

As the door slammed after the departing Admiral, Lord Julian turned to Arabella, and actually smiled. He felt that he was doing better, and gathered from it an almost childish satisfaction⁠—childish in all the circumstances. “Decidedly I think I had the last word there,” he said, with a toss of his golden ringlets.

Miss Bishop, seated at the cabin-table, looked at him steadily, without returning his smile. “Does it matter, then, so much, having the last word? I am thinking of those poor fellows on the Royal Mary. Many of them have had their last word, indeed. And for what? A fine ship sunk, a score of lives lost, thrice that number now in jeopardy, and all for what?”

“You are overwrought, ma’am. I⁠ ⁠…”

“Overwrought!” She uttered a single sharp note of laughter. “I assure you I am calm. I am asking you a question, Lord Julian. Why has this Spaniard done all this? To what purpose?”

“You heard him.” Lord Julian shrugged angrily. “Blood-lust,” he explained shortly.

“Blood-lust?” she asked. She was amazed. “Does such a thing exist, then? It is insane, monstrous.”

“Fiendish,” his lordship agreed. “Devil’s work.”

“I don’t understand. At Bridgetown three years ago there was a Spanish raid, and things were done that should have been impossible to men, horrible, revolting things which strain belief, which seem, when I think of them now, like the illusions of some evil dream. Are men just beasts?”

“Men?” said Lord Julian, staring. “Say Spaniards, and I’ll agree.” He was an Englishman speaking of hereditary foes. And yet there was a measure of truth in what he said. “This is the Spanish way in the New World. Faith, almost it justifies such men as Blood of what they do.”

She shivered, as if cold, and setting her elbows on the table, she took her chin in her hands, and sat staring before her.

Observing her, his lordship noticed how drawn and white her face had grown. There was reason enough for that, and for worse. Not any other woman of his acquaintance would have preserved her self-control in such an ordeal; and of fear, at least, at no time had Miss Bishop shown any sign. It is impossible that he did not find her admirable.

A Spanish steward entered bearing a silver chocolate service and a box of Peruvian candies, which he placed on the table before the lady.

“With the Admiral’s homage,” he said, then bowed, and withdrew.

Miss Bishop took no heed of him or his offering, but continued to stare before her, lost in thought. Lord Julian took a turn in the long low cabin, which was lighted by a skylight above and great square windows astern. It was luxuriously appointed: there were rich Eastern rugs on the floor, well-filled bookcases stood against the bulkheads, and there was a carved walnut sideboard laden with silverware. On a long, low chest standing under the middle stern port lay a guitar that was gay with ribbons. Lord Julian picked it up, twanged the strings once as if moved by nervous irritation, and put it down.

He turned again to face Miss Bishop.

“I came out here,” he said, “to put down piracy. But⁠—blister me!⁠—I begin to think that the French are right in desiring piracy to continue as a curb upon these Spanish scoundrels.”

He was to be strongly confirmed in that opinion before many hours were past. Meanwhile their treatment at the hands of Don Miguel was considerate and courteous. It confirmed the opinion, contemptuously expressed to his lordship by Miss Bishop, that since they were to be held to ransom they need not fear any violence or hurt. A cabin was placed at the disposal of the lady and her terrified woman, and another at Lord Julian’s. They were given the freedom of the ship, and bidden to