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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.
But it is not possible that you are aware of the mistake that has been made." "Mistake, do you say?" "I say mistake. On the whole, it is polite of me to use that word. Also it is expedient. It will save discussions. Your people have arrested the wrong man, M. de Rivarol. Instead of the French officer, who used the grossest provocation, they have arrested Captain Wolverstone.
"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.
"I care nothing for his threats." "You should," said Wolverstone. "The wise thing'd be to hang him, along o' all the rest." "It is not human to be wise," said Blood. "It is much more human to err, though perhaps exceptional to err on the side of mercy. We'll be exceptional. Oh, faugh! I've no stomach for cold-blooded killing.
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.
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."
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.
The order of their going was as follows: Ahead went the improvised fire-ship in charge of Wolverstone, with a crew of six volunteers, each of whom was to have a hundred pieces of eight over and above his share of plunder as a special reward. Next came the Arabella.
It was now a question whether they should convey the Spaniards thither with them, or turn them off in a boat to make the best of their way to the coast of Hispaniola, which was but ten miles off. This was the course urged by Blood himself. "There's nothing else to be done," he insisted. "In Tortuga they would be flayed alive." "Which is less than the swine deserve," growled Wolverstone.
It is a piece of cheese a piece of cheese in a mousetrap, and we are the little mice. Goddam! And the cats oh, the cats they wait for us! The cats are those four Spanish ships of war that have come meantime. And they wait for us outside the bottle-neck of this lagoon. Mort de Dieu! That is what comes of the damned obstinacy of your fine Captain Blood." Wolverstone laughed.
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