Chapter XXV: The Service of King Louis

Meanwhile, some three months before Colonel Bishop set out to reduce Tortuga, Captain Blood, bearing hell in his soul, had blown into its rockbound harbour ahead of the winter gales, and two days ahead of the frigate in which Wolverstone had sailed from Port Royal a day before him.

In that snug anchorage he found his fleet awaiting him--the four ships which had been separated in that gale off the Lesser Antilles, and some seven hundred men composing their crews. Because they had been beginning to grow anxious on his behalf, they gave him the greater welcome. Guns were fired in his honour and the ships made themselves gay with bunting. The town, aroused by all this noise in the harbour, emptied itself upon the jetty, and a vast crowd of men and women of all creeds and nationalities collected there to be present at the coming ashore of the great buccaneer.

Ashore he went, probably for no other reason than to obey the general expectation. His mood was taciturn; his face grim and sneering. Let Wolverstone arrive, as presently he would, and all this hero-worship would turn to execration.

His captains, Hagthorpe, Christian, and Yberville, were on the jetty to receive him, and with them were some hundreds of his buccaneers. He cut short their greetings, and when they plagued him with questions of where he had tarried, he bade them await the coming of Wolverstone, who would satisfy their curiosity to a surfeit. On that he shook them off, and shouldered his way through that heterogeneous throng that was composed of bustling traders of several nations--English, French, and Dutch--of planters and of seamen of various degrees, of buccaneers who were fruit-selling half-castes, negro slaves, some doll-tearsheets and dunghill-queans from the Old World, and all the other types of the human family that converted the quays of Cayona into a disreputable image of Babel.

Winning clear at last, and after difficulties, Captain Blood took his way alone to the fine house of M. d’Ogeron, there to pay his respects to his friends, the Governor and the Governor’s family.

At first the buccaneers jumped to the conclusion that Wolverstone was following with some rare prize of war, but gradually from the reduced crew of the Arabella a very different tale leaked out to stem their satisfaction and convert it into perplexity. Partly out of loyalty to their captain, partly because they perceived that if he was guilty of defection they were guilty with him, and partly because being simple, sturdy men of their hands, they were themselves in the main a little confused as to what really had happened, the crew of the Arabella practised reticence with their brethren in Tortuga during those two days before Wolverstone’s arrival. But they were not reticent enough to prevent the circulation of certain uneasy rumours and extravagant stories of discreditable adventures--discreditable, that is, from the buccaneering point of view--of which Captain Blood had been guilty.

But that Wolverstone came when he did, it is possible that there would have been an explosion. When, however, the Old Wolf cast anchor in the bay two days later, it was to him all turned for the explanation they were about to demand of Blood.

Now Wolverstone had only one eye; but he saw a deal more with that one eye than do most men with two; and despite his grizzled head--so picturesquely swathed in a green and scarlet turban--he had the sound heart of a boy, and in that heart much love for Peter Blood.

The sight of the Arabella at anchor in the bay had at first amazed him as he sailed round the rocky headland that bore the fort. He rubbed his single eye clear of any deceiving film and looked again. Still he could not believe what it saw. And then a voice at his elbow--the voice of Dyke, who had elected to sail with him--assured him that he was not singular in his bewilderment.

“In the name of Heaven, is that the Arabella or is it the ghost of her?”

The Old Wolf rolled his single eye over Dyke, and opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it again without having spoken; closed it tightly. He had a great gift of caution, especially in matters that he did not understand. That this was the Arabella he could no longer doubt. That being so, he must think before he spoke. What the devil should the Arabella be doing here, when he had left her in Jamaica? And was Captain Blood aboard and in command, or had the remainder of her hands made off with her, leaving the Captain in Port Royal?

Dyke repeated his question. This time Wolverstone answered him.

“Ye’ve two eyes to see with, and ye ask me, who’s only got one, what it is ye see!”

“But I see the Arabella.”

“Of course, since there she rides. What else was you expecting?”

“Expecting?” Dyke stared at him, open-mouthed. “Was you expecting to find the Arabella here?”

Wolverstone looked him over in contempt, then laughed and spoke loud enough to be heard by all around him. “Of course. What else?” And he laughed again, a laugh that seemed to Dyke to be calling him a fool. On that Wolverstone turned to give his attention to the operation of anchoring.

Anon when ashore he was beset by questioning buccaneers, it was from their very questions that he gathered exactly how matters stood, and perceived that either from lack of courage or other motive Blood, himself, had refused to render any account of his doings since the Arabella had separated from her sister ships. Wolverstone congratulated himself upon the discretion he had used with Dyke.

“The Captain was ever a modest man,” he explained to Hagthorpe and those others who came crowding round him. “It’s not his way to be sounding his own praises. Why, it was like this. We fell in with old Don Miguel, and when we’d scuttled him we took aboard a London pimp sent out by the Secretary of State to offer the Captain the King’s commission if so be him’d quit piracy and be o’ good behaviour. The Captain damned his soul to hell for answer. And then we fell in wi’ the Jamaica fleet and that grey old devil Bishop in command, and there was a sure end to Captain Blood and to every mother’s son of us all. So I goes to him, and ‘accept this poxy commission,’ says I; ‘turn King’s man and save your neck and ours.’ He took me at my word, and the London pimp gave him the King’s commission on the spot, and Bishop all but choked hisself with rage when he was told of it. But happened it had, and he was forced to swallow it. We were King’s men all, and so into Port Royal we sailed along o’ Bishop. But Bishop didn’t trust us. He knew too much. But for his lordship, the fellow from London, he’d ha’ hanged the Captain, King’s commission and all. Blood would ha’ slipped out o’ Port Royal again that same night. But that hound Bishop had passed the word, and the fort kept a sharp lookout. In the end, though it took a fortnight, Blood bubbled him. He sent me and most o’ the men off in a frigate that I bought for the voyage. His game--as he’d secretly told me--was to follow and give chase. Whether that’s the game he played or not I can’t tell ye; but here he is afore me as I’d expected he would be.”

There was a great historian lost in Wolverstone. He had the right imagination that knows just how far it is safe to stray from the truth and just how far to colour it so as to change its shape for his own purposes.

Having delivered himself of his decoction of fact and falsehood, and thereby added one more to the exploits of Peter Blood, he enquired where the Captain might be found. Being informed that he kept his ship, Wolverstone stepped into a boat and went aboard, to report himself, as he put it.

In the great cabin of the Arabella he found Peter Blood alone and very far gone in drink--a condition in which no man ever before remembered to have seen him. As Wolverstone came in, the Captain raised bloodshot eyes to consider him. A moment they sharpened in their gaze as he brought his visitor into focus. Then he laughed, a loose, idiot laugh, that yet somehow was half a sneer.

“Ah! The Old Wolf!” said he. “Got here at last, eh? And whatcher gonnerdo wi’ me, eh?” He hiccoughed resoundingly, and sagged back loosely in his chair.

Old Wolverstone stared at him in sombre silence. He had looked with untroubled eye upon many a hell of devilment in his time, but the sight of Captain Blood in this condition filled him with sudden grief. To express it he loosed an oath. It was his only expression for emotion of all kinds. Then he rolled forward, and dropped into a chair at the table, facing the Captain.

“My God, Peter, what’s this?”

“Rum,” said Peter. “Rum, from Jamaica.” He pushed bottle and glass towards Wolverstone.

Wolverstone disregarded them.

“I’m asking you what ails you?” he bawled.

“Rum,” said Captain Blood again, and smiled. “Jus’ rum. I answer all your queshons. Why donjerr answer mine? Whatcher gonerdo wi’ me?”

“I’ve done it,” said Wolverstone. “Thank God, ye had the sense to hold your tongue till I came. Are ye sober enough to understand me?”

“Drunk or sober, allus ‘derstand you.”

“Then listen.” And out came the tale that Wolverstone had told. The Captain steadied himself to grasp it.

“It’ll do as well asertruth,” said he when Wolverstone had finished. “And ... oh, no marrer! Much obliged to ye, Old Wolf--faithful Old Wolf! But was it worthertrouble? I’m norrer pirate now; never a pirate again. ‘S finished’” He banged the table, his eyes suddenly fierce.

“I’ll come and talk to you again when there’s less rum in your wits,” said Wolverstone, rising. “Meanwhile ye’ll please to remember the tale I’ve told, and say nothing that’ll make me out a liar. They all believes me, even the men as sailed wi’ me from Port Royal. I’ve made ‘em. If they thought as how you’d taken the King’s commission in earnest, and for the purpose o’ doing as Morgan did, ye guess what would follow.”