«And you, Monsieur Joinville, will permit this without protest?»
Joinville spread his hands, thrust out a nether lip, and shrugged. «You have brought it on yourself, Captain Blood.»
«So that is what you are here to report to Monsieur d'Ogeron! Well, well!» He laughed with a touch of bitterness.
And then, abruptly, on the noontide stillness outside came the thunder of a gun to shake them all. Followed the screaming of startled gulls, a pause in which men eyed one another, and then, a shade uneasily, came the question from Easterling, addressed to no one in particular:
«What the devil's that?»
It was Blood who answered him pleasantly. «Now, don't let it alarm ye, Captain, darling. It's just a salute fired in your honour by Ogle, the gunner the highly skilful gunner — of the Cinco Llagas. Have I told you about him yet?» His eyes embraced the company in the question.
«A salute?» quoth Easterling. «By Hell, what do you mean? A salute?»
«Why, just a courtesy, as a reminder to us and a warning to you. It's a reminder to us that we've taken up an hour of your time, and that we must put no further strain upon your hospitality.» He got to his feet, and stood, easy and elegant in his Spanish suit of black and silver. «It's a very good day we'll be wishing you, Captain.»
Inflamed of countenance, Easterling plucked a pistol from his belt. «You play–acting buffoon! Ye don't leave this ship.»
But Captain Blood continued to smile. «Faith, that will be very bad for the ship, and for all aboard her, including this ingenuous Monsieur Joinville, who really believes you'll pay him the promised share of your phantom treasure for bearing false witness against me, so as to justify you in the eyes of the Governor for seizing the Cinco Llagas. Ye see, I am under no delusions, concerning you, my dear captain. For a rogue ye're a thought too transparent.»
Easterling loosed a volley of minatory obscenity, waving his pistol. He was restrained from using it only by an indefinable uneasiness aroused by his guest's bantering manner.
«We are wasting time,» Blood interrupted him, «and the moments, believe me, are growing singularly precious. You'ld best know where you stand. My orders to Ogle were that if within ten minutes of his firing that salute I and my friends here were not over the side of the Bonaventure, he was to put a round shot into your forecastle along the water–line, and as many more after that as may be necessary to sink you by the head. I do not think that many will be necessary. Ogle is a singularly skilful marksman. He served with distinction as a gunner in the King's Navy. I think I've told you about him.»
It was Joinville who broke the moment's silence that followed. «God of my life!» he bleated, bounding to his feet. «Let me out of this.»
«Oh, stow your squealing, you French rat,» snarled the infuriated Easterling. Then he turned his fury upon Blood, balancing the pistol ominously. «You sneaking leech, you college offal! You'ld ha' done better to ha' stuck to your cuppings and bleedings, as I told you.»
His murderous intention was plain. But Blood was too swift for him. Before any could so much as guess his purpose, he had snatched up by its neck the flagon of Canary that stood before him, and crashed it across Captain Easterling's left temple.
As the captain of the Bonaventure reeled back against the cabin bulkhead, Peter Blood bowed slightly to him.
«I regret,» said he, «that I have no cup; but, as you see, I can practise phlebotomy with a bottle.»
Easterling sagged down in a limp, unconscious mass at the foot of the bulkhead. The spectacle stirred his officers. There was a movement towards Captain Blood, and a din of raucous voices, and someone laid hands upon him. But above the uproar rang his vibrant voice.
«Be warned! The moments are speeding. The ten minutes have all but fled, and either I and my friends depart, or we all sink together in this bottom.»
«In God's name, bethink you of it!» cried Joinville, and started for the door.
A buccaneer, who did bethink him of it and who was of a practical turn of mind, seized him about the body, and flung him back.
«You there!» he shouted to Captain Blood. «You and your men go first. And bestir yourselves! We've no mind to drown like rats.»
They went as they were bidden, curses pursuing them and threats of a reckoning to follow.
Either the ruffians aswarm on the deck above were not in the secret of Easterling's intentions, or else a voice of authority forbade them to hinder the departure of Captain Blood and his companions.
In the cock–boat, midway between the two vessels, Hagthorpe found his voice at last.
«On my soul's salvation, Peter, there was a moment when I thought our sands were run.»
«Ay, ay,» said Pitt, with fervour. «And even as it was they might have been.» He swung to Peter Blood, where he sat in the sternsheets. «Suppose that for one reason or another we had not got out in those ten minutes, and Ogle had opened fire in earnest? What, then?»
«Ah!» said Blood. «Our real danger lay in that he wasn't like to do it.»
«But if you so ordered him?»
«Nay, that's just what I forgot to do. All I told him was to loose a blank shot when we had been gone an hour. I thought that however things went it might prove useful. And on my soul, I believe it did. Lord!» He took off his hat, and mopped his brow under the staring eyes of his companions.
«I wonder now if it's the heat that's making me sweat like this.»
II — THE TREASURE SHIP
IT was a saying of Captain Blood's that the worth of a man manifests itself not so much in the ability to plan great undertakings as in the vision which perceives opportunity and the address which knows how to seize it.
He had certainly displayed these qualities in possessing himself of that fine Spanish ship the Cinco Llagas and he had displayed them again in foiling the designs of that rascally buccaneer Captain Easterling to rob him of that noble vessel.
Meanwhile, his own and his ship's near escape made it clear to all who followed him that there was little safety for them in Tortuga waters, and little trust to be placed in buccaneers. At a general council held that same afternoon in the ship's waist, Blood propounded the simple philosophy that when a man is attacked he must either fight or run.
«And since we are in no case to fight when attacked, as no doubt we shall be, it but remains to play the coward's part if only so that we may survive to prove ourselves brave men some other day.»
They agreed with him. But whilst the decision to run was taken, it was left to be determined later whither they should repair. At the moment all that mattered was to get away from Tortuga and the further probable attentions of Captain Easterling.
Thus it fell out that, in the dead of the following night, which if clear was moonless, the great frigate, which once had been the pride of the Cadiz shipyards, weighed anchor as quietly as such an operation might be performed. With canvas spread to the faint favouring breeze from the shore and with the ebb tide to help the manoeuvre, the Cinco Llagas stood out to sea. If groan of windlass, rattle of chain, and creak of blocks had betrayed the action to Easterling aboard the Bonaventure, a cable's length away, it was not in Easterling's power to thwart Blood's intention. At least three quarters of his rascally crew were in the taverns ashore, and Easterling was not disposed to attempt boarding operations with the remnant of his men, even though that remnant outnumbered by two to one the hands of the Cinco Llagas. Moreover, even had his full complement of two hundred been aboard, Easterling would still have offered no opposition to that departure. Whilst in Tortuga waters he might have attempted to get possession of the Cinco Llagas quietly and by strategy, not even his recklessness could consider seizing her violently by force in such a sanctuary, especially as the French Governor, Monsieur d'Ogeron, appeared to be friendly disposed towards Blood and his fellow fugitives.