«You are Captain Blood?»
The gentleman bowed. Captain Macartney gasped and desired his vitals to be stabbed. The Colonel said «Egad!» again, and his pale eyes bulged. He looked at his pallid wife, at Macartney, and then again at Captain Blood. «You're a daring rogue. A daring rogue, egad!»
«I see you've heard of me.»
«But not enough to credit this. Ye'll not have come to surrender?»
The buccaneer sauntered forward to the table. Instinctively Macartney rose.
«If you'll be reading this it will save a world of explanations.» And he laid before his Excellency the letter from the Spanish Admiral. «The fortune of war brought it into my hands together with the gentleman to whom it is addressed.»
Colonel Courtney read, changed colour, and handed the sheet to Macartney. Then he stared again at Blood, who spoke as if answering the stare.
«It's here to warn you I am, and at need to serve you.»
«To serve me?»
«Ye seem in need of it. Your ridiculous fort will not stand an hour under Spanish gunfire, and after that you'll have these gentlemen of Castile in the town. Maybe you know how they conduct themselves on these occasions. If not, I'll be after telling you.»
«But — stab me!» spluttered Macartney — «we're not at war with Spain.»
Colonel Courtney turned in cold fury upon Blood. «It is you who are the author of all our woes. It is your rascalities which bring these reprisals upon us.»
«That's why I've come. Although I think I am a pretext rather than a reason.» Captain Blood sat down. «You've been finding gold in Antigua, as I've heard. Don Miguel will have heard it too. Your militia garrison is not two hundred strong, and your fort, as I've said, is so much rubbish. I bring you a strong ship very heavily armed, and two hundred of the toughest fighting–men to be found in the Caribbean, or anywhere in the world. Of course I'm a damned pirate, and there's a price on my head, and if ye're fastidiously scrupulous ye'll have nothing to say to me. But if ye've any sense, as I hope ye have, it's thanking God ye'll be that I've come, and ye'll make terms with me.»
«Terms?»
Captain Blood explained himself. His men did not risk their lives for the honour and glory of it, and there were in his following a number who were French, and who therefore lacked all patriotic feeling where a British colony was concerned. They would expect a trifle for the valuable services they were about to render.
«Also, Colonel,» Blood concluded, «there's a point of honour for you. Whilst it may be difficult for you to enter into alliance with us, there's no difficulty about hiring us, and you may pursue us again without scruple once this job is done.»
The Governor looked at him with gloomy eyes. «If I did my duty I would have you in irons and send you home to England to be hanged.»
Captain Blood was unperturbed. «Your immediate duty is to preserve the colony of which ye're governor. Ye'll perceive its danger. And the danger is so imminent that even moments may count. Ye'ld do well, faith, not to be wasting them.»
The Governor looked at Macartney. Macartney's face was as blank as his mind. Then the lady, who had sat a scared and silent witness, suddenly stood up. Like her husband she was tall and angular, and a tropical climate had prematurely aged her and consumed her beauty. Apparently, thought Blood, it had not consumed her reason.
«James, how can you hesitate? Think of what will happen to the women — the women and the children — if these Spaniards land. Remember what they did at Bridgetown.»
The Governor stood with his chin upon his breast, frowning gloomily. «Yet I cannot enter into alliance with … I cannot make terms with outlaws. My duty here is clear. Quite clear.» There was finality in his tone.
«Fiat officium, ruat coelum,» said the classical–minded Blood. He sighed, and rose. «If that's your last word, I'll be wishing you a very good day. I've no mind to be caught unawares by the Caribbean squadron.»
«You don't leave,» said the Colonel sharply. «There, too, my duty is clear. The guard, Macartney.»
«Och, don't be a fool now, Colonel.» Blood's gesture arrested Macartney.
«I'm not a fool, sir, and I know what becomes me. I must do my duty.»
«And is your duty demanding so scurvy a return for the valuable service I've already rendered you by my warning? Give it thought now, Colonel.»
Again the Colonel's lady acted as Blood's advocate, and acted passionately in her clear apprehension of the only really material issue.
Exasperated, the Colonel flung himself down into his chair again. «But I cannot. I will not make terms with a rebel, an outlaw, a pirate. The dignity of my office … I … I cannot.»
In his heart Captain Blood cursed the stupidity of governments that sent such men as this to represent them overseas.
«Will the dignity of your office restrain the Spanish Admiral, d'ye suppose?»
«And the women, James!» his lady again reminded him. «Surely, James, in this extreme need — a whole squadron coming to attack you — his Majesty must approve your enlisting any aid.»
Thus she began and thus continued, and now Macartney was moved to alliance with her against his Excellency's narrow stubbornness, until in the end the Captain–General was brought to sacrifice dignity to expediency. Still reluctant he demanded ill–humouredly to know the terms of the buccaneers.
«For myself,» said Blood, «I ask nothing. I will organize your defences for the sake of the blood in my veins. But when the Spaniards have been driven off, I shall require a hundred pieces of eight for each of my men. I have two hundred of them.»
His Excellency was scandalized. «Twenty thousand pieces!» He choked, and so far forgot his dignity as to haggle. But Blood was coldly firm, and in the end the price was agreed.
That afternoon he set to work upon the defences of Saint John's.
Fort Bay is an inlet some two miles in depth and a mile across its widest part. It narrows a little at the mouth, forming a slight bottle–neck. In the middle of this neck ran a long, narrow spit of sand, partly uncovered at extreme low water, with a channel on either side. The southern channel was safe only for vessels of shallow draught; in the narrow, northern channel, however, at the entrance to which the Arabella now rode at anchor, there was never less than eight fathoms, at times slightly increased by the small tides of this sea, so that this was the only gateway to the bay. The fort guarded this channel, occupying a shallow eminence on the northern promontory. It was a square, squat, machicolated structure of grey stone, and its armament consisted of a dozen ancient sakers and a half–dozen faucons with an extreme range of two thousand yards, guns these which provoked Captain Blood's contempt. He supplemented them by twelve sakers of more modern fashion, which he brought ashore from the Atrevida.
Twelve more guns he landed from the Spanish ship, including two twelve–pounders. These, however, he reserved for another purpose. Fifty yards west of the fort on the extreme edge of the promontory he set about the construction of earthworks, and set about it at a rate which allowed Colonel Courtney some insight into buccaneer methods and the secret of their success.
He landed a hundred of his men for the purpose and had them toiling almost naked in the broiling sun. To these he added three hundred whites and as many Negroes from Saint John's — practically the whole of its efficient male population — and he had them digging, banking, and filling the wickerwork gabions into the making of which he impressed the women. Others were sent to cut turf and fell trees, and fetch one and the other to the site of these operations. Throughout the afternoon the promontory seethed and crawled like an ant–heap. By sunset all was done. It seemed a miracle to the Captain–General. In six hours, under Blood's direction and the drive of his will, another fort had been constructed which by ordinary methods could not have been built in less than a week. And it was not only built and armed with the remaining twelve guns brought from the Atrevida and with a half–dozen powerful demicannons landed from the Arabella, it was so effectively dissembled that from the sea no suspicion of its existence could be formed. Strips of turf faced it so that it merged into the background of shallow cliff; cocoanut palms topped it and rose about it, clumps of white acacia and arnotto trees masked the gun emplacements so effectively as to render them invisible at half a mile.