CHAPTER XV. THE RANSOM
In the glory of the following morning, sparkling and clear after thestorm, with an invigorating, briny tang in the air from the salt-pondson the south of the island, a curious scene was played on the beach ofthe Virgen Magra, at the foot of a ridge of bleached dunes, beside thespread of sail from which Levasseur had improvised a tent.
Enthroned upon an empty cask sat the French filibuster to transactimportant business: the business of making himself safe with theGovernor of Tortuga.
A guard of honour of a half-dozen officers hung about him; five of themwere rude boucan-hunters, in stained jerkins and leather breeches; thesixth was Cahusac. Before him, guarded by two half-naked negroes, stoodyoung d'Ogeron, in frilled shirt and satin small-clothes and fine shoesof Cordovan leather. He was stripped of doublet, and his hands were tiedbehind him. The young gentleman's comely face was haggard. Near athand, and also under guard, but unpinioned, mademoiselle his sister sathunched upon a hillock of sand. She was very pale, and it was in vainthat she sought to veil in a mask of arrogance the fears by which shewas assailed.
Levasseur addressed himself to M. d'Ogeron. He spoke at long length. Inthe end--
"I trust, monsieur," said he, with mock suavity, "that I have mademyself quite clear. So that there may be no misunderstandings, I willrecapitulate. Your ransom is fixed at twenty thousand pieces of eight,and you shall have liberty on parole to go to Tortuga to collect it.In fact, I shall provide the means to convey you thither, and you shallhave a month in which to come and go. Meanwhile, your sister remainswith me as a hostage. Your father should not consider such a sumexcessive as the price of his son's liberty and to provide a dowry forhis daughter. Indeed, if anything, I am too modest, pardi! M. d'Ogeronis reputed a wealthy man."
M. d'Ogeron the younger raised his head and looked the Captain boldly inthe face.
"I refuse--utterly and absolutely, do you understand? So do your worst,and be damned for a filthy pirate without decency and without honour."
"But what words!" laughed Levasseur. "What heat and what foolishness!You have not considered the alternative. When you do, you will notpersist in your refusal. You will not do that in any case. We have spursfor the reluctant. And I warn you against giving me your parole understress, and afterwards playing me false. I shall know how to find andpunish you. Meanwhile, remember your sister's honour is in pawn to me.Should you forget to return with the dowry, you will not consider itunreasonable that I forget to marry her."
Levasseur's smiling eyes, intent upon the young man's face, saw thehorror that crept into his glance. M. d'Ogeron cast a wild glance atmademoiselle, and observed the grey despair that had almost stamped thebeauty from her face. Disgust and fury swept across his countenance.
Then he braced himself and answered resolutely:
"No, you dog! A thousand times, no!"
"You are foolish to persist." Levasseur spoke without anger, with acoldly mocking regret. His fingers had been busy tying knots in a lengthof whipcord. He held it up. "You know this? It is a rosary of pain thathas wrought the conversion of many a stubborn heretic. It is capableof screwing the eyes out of a man's head by way of helping him to seereason. As you please."
He flung the length of knotted cord to one of the negroes, who in aninstant made it fast about the prisoner's brows. Then between cord andcranium the black inserted a short length of metal, round and slenderas a pipe-stem. That done he rolled his eyes towards Levasseur, awaitingthe Captain's signal.
Levasseur considered his victim, and beheld him tense and braced, hishaggard face of a leaden hue, beads of perspiration glinting on hispallid brow just beneath the whipcord.
Mademoiselle cried out, and would have risen: but her guards restrainedher, and she sank down again, moaning.
"I beg that you will spare yourself and your sister," said the Captain,"by being reasonable. What, after all, is the sum I have named? To yourwealthy father a bagatelle. I repeat, I have been too modest. But sinceI have said twenty thousand pieces of eight, twenty thousand pieces itshall be."
"And for what, if you please, have you said twenty thousand pieces ofeight?"
In execrable French, but in a voice that was crisp and pleasant, seemingto echo some of the mockery that had invested Levasseur's, that questionfloated over their heads.
Startled, Levasseur and his officers looked up and round. On the crestof the dunes behind them, in sharp silhouette against the deep cobalt ofthe sky, they beheld a tall, lean figure scrupulously dressed in blackwith silver lace, a crimson ostrich plume curled about the broad brim ofhis hat affording the only touch of colour. Under that hat was the tawnyface of Captain Blood.
Levasseur gathered himself up with an oath of amazement. He hadconceived Captain Blood by now well below the horizon, on his way toTortuga, assuming him to have been so fortunate as to have weatheredlast night's storm.
Launching himself upon the yielding sand, into which he sank to thelevel of the calves of his fine boots of Spanish leather, Captain Bloodcame sliding erect to the beach. He was followed by Wolverstone, anda dozen others. As he came to a standstill, he doffed his hat, with aflourish, to the lady. Then he turned to Levasseur.
"Good-morning, my Captain," said he, and proceeded to explain hispresence. "It was last night's hurricane compelled our return. We had nochoice but to ride before it with stripped poles, and it drove us backthe way we had gone. Moreover--as the devil would have it!--the Santiagosprang her mainmast; and so I was glad to put into a cove on the westof the island a couple of miles away, and we've walked across tostretch our legs, and to give you good-day. But who are these?" And hedesignated the man and the woman.
Cahusac shrugged his shoulders, and tossed his long arms to heaven.
"Voila!" said he, pregnantly, to the firmament.
Levasseur gnawed his lip, and changed colour. But he controlled himselfto answer civilly:
"As you see, two prisoners."
"Ah! Washed ashore in last night's gale, eh?"
"Not so." Levasseur contained himself with difficulty before that irony."They were in the Dutch brig."
"I don't remember that you mentioned them before."
"I did not. They are prisoners of my own--a personal matter. They areFrench."
"French!" Captain Blood's light eyes stabbed at Levasseur, then at theprisoners.
M. d'Ogeron stood tense and braced as before, but the grey horror hadleft his face. Hope had leapt within him at this interruption, obviouslyas little expected by his tormentor as by himself. His sister, movedby a similar intuition, was leaning forward with parted lips and gapingeyes.
Captain Blood fingered his lip, and frowned thoughtfully upon Levasseur.
"Yesterday you surprised me by making war upon the friendly Dutch. Butnow it seems that not even your own countrymen are safe from you."
"Have I not said that these... that this is a matter personal to me?"
"Ah! And their names?"
Captain Blood's crisp, authoritative, faintly disdainful manner stirredLevasseur's quick anger. The blood crept slowly back into his blenchedface, and his glance grew in insolence, almost in menace. Meanwhile theprisoner answered for him.
"I am Henri d'Ogeron, and this is my sister."
"D'Ogeron?" Captain Blood stared. "Are you related by chance to my goodfriend the Governor of Tortuga?"
"He is my father."
Levasseur swung aside with an imprecation. In Captain Blood, amazementfor the moment quenched every other emotion.
"The saints preserve us now! Are you quite mad, Levasseur? First youmolest the Dutch, who are our friends; next you take prisoners twopersons that are French, your own countrymen; and now, faith, they're noless than the children of the Governor of Tortuga, which is the one safeplace of shelter that we enjoy in these islands...."
Levasseur broke in angrily:
"Must I tell you again that it is a matter personal to me? I make myselfalone responsible to the Governor of Tortuga."
"And the twent
y thousand pieces of eight? Is that also a matter personalto you?"
"It is."
"Now I don't agree with you at all." Captain Blood sat down on the caskthat Levasseur had lately occupied, and looked up blandly. "I may informyou, to save time, that I heard the entire proposal that you made tothis lady and this gentleman, and I'll also remind you that we sailunder articles that admit no ambiguities. You have fixed their ransom attwenty thousand pieces of eight. That sum then belongs to your crews andmine in the proportions by the articles established. You'll hardly wishto dispute it. But what is far more grave is that you have concealedfrom me this part of the prizes taken on your last cruise, and forsuch an offence as that the articles provide certain penalties that aresomething severe in character."
"Ho, ho!" laughed Levasseur unpleasantly. Then added: "If you dislike myconduct we can dissolve the association."
"That is my intention. But we'll dissolve it when and in the manner thatI choose, and that will be as soon as you have satisfied the articlesunder which we sailed upon this cruise.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll be as short as I can," said Captain Blood. "I'll waive for themoment the unseemliness of making war upon the Dutch, of taking Frenchprisoners, and of provoking the anger of the Governor of Tortuga. I'llaccept the situation as I find it. Yourself you've fixed the ransom ofthis couple at twenty thousand pieces, and, as I gather, the lady isto be your perquisite. But why should she be your perquisite more thananother's, seeing that she belongs by the articles to all of us, as aprize of war?"
Black as thunder grew the brow of Levasseur.
"However," added Captain Blood, "I'll not dispute her to you if you areprepared to buy her."
"Buy her?"
"At the price you have set upon her."
Levasseur contained his rage, that he might reason with the Irishman."That is the ransom of the man. It is to be paid for him by the Governorof Tortuga."
"No, no. Ye've parcelled the twain together--very oddly, I confess.Ye've set their value at twenty thousand pieces, and for that sum youmay have them, since you desire it; but you'll pay for them the twentythousand pieces that are ultimately to come to you as the ransom ofone and the dowry of the other; and that sum shall be divided among ourcrews. So that you do that, it is conceivable that our followers maytake a lenient view of your breach of the articles we jointly signed."
Levasseur laughed savagely. "Ah ca! Credieu! The good jest!"
"I quite agree with you," said Captain Blood.
To Levasseur the jest lay in that Captain Blood, with no more than adozen followers, should come there attempting to hector him who had ahundred men within easy call. But it seemed that he had left out of hisreckoning something which his opponent had counted in. For as, laughingstill, Levasseur swung to his officers, he saw that which choked thelaughter in his throat. Captain Blood had shrewdly played upon thecupidity that was the paramount inspiration of those adventurers. AndLevasseur now read clearly on their faces how completely they adoptedCaptain Blood's suggestion that all must participate in the ransom whichtheir leader had thought to appropriate to himself.
It gave the gaudy ruffian pause, and whilst in his heart he cursedthose followers of his, who could be faithful only to their greed, heperceived--and only just in time--that he had best tread warily.
"You misunderstand," he said, swallowing his rage. "The ransom isfor division, when it comes. The girl, meanwhile, is mine on thatunderstanding."
"Good!" grunted Cahusac. "On that understanding all arranges itself."
"You think so?" said Captain Blood. "But if M. d'Ogeron should refuse topay the ransom? What then?" He laughed, and got lazily to his feet. "No,no. If Captain Levasseur is meanwhile to keep the girl, as he proposes,then let him pay this ransom, and be his the risk if it shouldafterwards not be forthcoming."
"That's it!" cried one of Levasseur's officers. And Cahusac added: "It'sreasonable, that! Captain Blood is right. It is in the articles."
"What is in the articles, you fools?" Levasseur was in danger of losinghis head. "Sacre Dieu! Where do you suppose that I have twenty thousandpieces? My whole share of the prizes of this cruise does not come tohalf that sum. I'll be your debtor until I've earned it. Will thatcontent you?"
All things considered, there is not a doubt that it would have done sohad not Captain Blood intended otherwise.
"And if you should die before you have earned it? Ours is a callingfraught with risks, my Captain."
"Damn you!" Levasseur flung upon him livid with fury. "Will nothingsatisfy you?"
"Oh, but yes. Twenty thousand pieces of eight for immediate division."
"I haven't got it."
"Then let some one buy the prisoners who has."
"And who do you suppose has it if I have not?"
"I have," said Captain Blood.
"You have!" Levasseur's mouth fell open. "You... you want the girl?"
"Why not? And I exceed you in gallantry in that I will make sacrificesto obtain her, and in honesty in that I am ready to pay for what Iwant."
Levasseur stared at him foolishly agape. Behind him pressed hisofficers, gaping also.
Captain Blood sat down again on the cask, and drew from an inner pocketof his doublet a little leather bag. "I am glad to be able to resolve adifficulty that at one moment seemed insoluble." And under the bulgingeyes of Levasseur and his officers, he untied the mouth of the bag androlled into his left palm four or five pearls each of the size of asparrow's egg. There were twenty such in the bag, the very pick ofthose taken in that raid upon the pearl fleet. "You boast a knowledge ofpearls, Cahusac. At what do you value this?"
The Breton took between coarse finger and thumb the proffered lustrous,delicately iridescent sphere, his shrewd eyes appraising it.
"A thousand pieces," he answered shortly.
"It will fetch rather more in Tortuga or Jamaica," said Captain Blood,"and twice as much in Europe. But I'll accept your valuation. They arealmost of a size, as you can see. Here are twelve, representing twelvethousand pieces of eight, which is La Foudre's share of three fifths ofthe prize, as provided by the articles. For the eight thousand piecesthat go to the Arabella, I make myself responsible to my own men. Andnow, Wolverstone, if you please, will you take my property aboard theArabella?" He stood up again, indicating the prisoners.
"Ah, no!" Levasseur threw wide the floodgates of his fury. "Ah, that,no, by example! You shall not take her...." He would have sprung uponCaptain Blood, who stood aloof, alert, tight-lipped, and watchful.
But it was one of Levasseur's own officers who hindered him.
"Nom de Dieu, my Captain! What will you do? It is settled; honourablysettled with satisfaction to all."
"To all?" blazed Levasseur. "Ah ca! To all of you, you animals! But whatof me?"
Cahusac, with the pearls clutched in his capacious hand, stepped up tohim on the other side. "Don't be a fool, Captain. Do you want to provoketrouble between the crews? His men outnumber us by nearly two to one.What's a girl more or less? In Heaven's name, let her go. He's paidhandsomely for her, and dealt fairly with us."
"Dealt fairly?" roared the infuriated Captain. "You...." In all hisfoul vocabulary he could find no epithet to describe his lieutenant.He caught him a blow that almost sent him sprawling. The pearls werescattered in the sand.
Cahusac dived after them, his fellows with him. Vengeance must wait.For some moments they groped there on hands and knees, oblivious of allelse. And yet in those moments vital things were happening.
Levasseur, his hand on his sword, his face a white mask of rage, wasconfronting Captain Blood to hinder his departure.
"You do not take her while I live!" he cried.
"Then I'll take her when you're dead," said Captain Blood, and his ownblade flashed in the sunlight. "The articles provide that any man ofwhatever rank concealing any part of a prize, be it of the value of nomore than a peso, shall be hanged at the yardarm. It's what I intendedfor you in the end. But since ye prefer it this
way, ye muckrake, faith,I'll be humouring you."
He waved away the men who would have interfered, and the blades rangtogether.
M. d'Ogeron looked on, a man bemused, unable to surmise what the issueeither way could mean for him. Meanwhile, two of Blood's men who hadtaken the place of the Frenchman's negro guards, had removed the crownof whipcord from his brow. As for mademoiselle, she had risen, and wasleaning forward, a hand pressed tightly to her heaving breast, her facedeathly pale, a wild terror in her eyes.
It was soon over. The brute strength, upon which Levasseur soconfidently counted, could avail nothing against the Irishman'spractised skill. When, with both lungs transfixed, he lay prone on thewhite sand, coughing out his rascally life, Captain Blood looked calmlyat Cahusac across the body.
"I think that cancels the articles between us," he said. With soulless,cynical eyes Cahusac considered the twitching body of his recent leader.Had Levasseur been a man of different temper, the affair might haveended in a very different manner. But, then, it is certain that CaptainBlood would have adopted in dealing with him different tactics. As itwas, Levasseur commanded neither love nor loyalty. The men who followedhim were the very dregs of that vile trade, and cupidity was their onlyinspiration. Upon that cupidity Captain Blood had deftly played, untilhe had brought them to find Levasseur guilty of the one offence theydeemed unpardonable, the crime of appropriating to himself somethingwhich might be converted into gold and shared amongst them all.
Thus now the threatening mob of buccaneers that came hastening to thetheatre of that swift tragi-comedy were appeased by a dozen words ofCahusac's.
Whilst still they hesitated, Blood added something to quicken theirdecision.
"If you will come to our anchorage, you shall receive at once your shareof the booty of the Santiago, that you may dispose of it as you please."
They crossed the island, the two prisoners accompanying them, and laterthat day, the division made, they would have parted company but thatCahusac, at the instances of the men who had elected him Levasseur'ssuccessor, offered Captain Blood anew the services of that Frenchcontingent.
"If you will sail with me again," the Captain answered him, "you may doso on the condition that you make your peace with the Dutch, and restorethe brig and her cargo."
The condition was accepted, and Captain Blood went off to find hisguests, the children of the Governor of Tortuga.
Mademoiselle d'Ogeron and her brother--the latter now relieved of hisbonds--sat in the great cabin of the Arabella, whither they had beenconducted.
Wine and food had been placed upon the table by Benjamin, CaptainBlood's negro steward and cook, who had intimated to them that it wasfor their entertainment. But it had remained untouched. Brother andsister sat there in agonized bewilderment, conceiving that their escapewas but from frying-pan to fire. At length, overwrought by the suspense,mademoiselle flung herself upon her knees before her brother to implorehis pardon for all the evil brought upon them by her wicked folly.
M. d'Ogeron was not in a forgiving mood.
"I am glad that at least you realize what you have done. And now thisother filibuster has bought you, and you belong to him. You realizethat, too, I hope."
He might have said more, but he checked upon perceiving that the doorwas opening. Captain Blood, coming from settling matters with thefollowers of Levasseur, stood on the threshold. M. d'Ogeron had nottroubled to restrain his high-pitched voice, and the Captain hadoverheard the Frenchman's last two sentences. Therefore he perfectlyunderstood why mademoiselle should bound up at sight of him, and shrinkback in fear.
"Mademoiselle," said he in his vile but fluent French, "I beg you todismiss your fears. Aboard this ship you shall be treated with allhonour. So soon as we are in case to put to sea again, we steer a coursefor Tortuga to take you home to your father. And pray do not considerthat I have bought you, as your brother has just said. All that Ihave done has been to provide the ransom necessary to bribe a gang ofscoundrels to depart from obedience to the arch-scoundrel who commandedthem, and so deliver you from all peril. Count it, if you please, afriendly loan to be repaid entirely at your convenience."
Mademoiselle stared at him in unbelief. M. d'Ogeron rose to his feet.
"Monsieur, is it possible that you are serious?"
"I am. It may not happen often nowadays. I may be a pirate. But my waysare not the ways of Levasseur, who should have stayed in Europe, andpractised purse-cutting. I have a sort of honour--shall we say, somerags of honour?--remaining me from better days." Then on a brisker notehe added: "We dine in an hour, and I trust that you will honour my tablewith your company. Meanwhile, Benjamin will see, monsieur, that you aremore suitably provided in the matter of wardrobe."
He bowed to them, and turned to depart again, but mademoiselle detainedhim.
"Monsieur!" she cried sharply.
He checked and turned, whilst slowly she approached him, regarding himbetween dread and wonder.
"Oh, you are noble!"
"I shouldn't put it as high as that myself," said he.
"You are, you are! And it is but right that you should know all."
"Madelon!" her brother cried out, to restrain her.
But she would not be restrained. Her surcharged heart must overflow inconfidence.
"Monsieur, for what befell I am greatly at fault. This man--thisLevasseur...."
He stared, incredulous in his turn. "My God! Is it possible? Thatanimal!"
Abruptly she fell on her knees, caught his hand and kissed it before hecould wrench it from her.
"What do you do?" he cried.
"An amende. In my mind I dishonoured you by deeming you his like, byconceiving your fight with Levasseur a combat between jackals. On myknees, monsieur, I implore you to forgive me."
Captain Blood looked down upon her, and a smile broke on his lips,irradiating the blue eyes that looked so oddly light in that tawny face.
"Why, child," said he, "I might find it hard to forgive you thestupidity of having thought otherwise."
As he handed her to her feet again, he assured himself that he hadbehaved rather well in the affair. Then he sighed. That dubious fame ofhis that had spread so quickly across the Caribbean would by now havereached the ears of Arabella Bishop. That she would despise him, hecould not doubt, deeming him no better than all the other scoundrels whodrove this villainous buccaneering trade. Therefore he hoped that someecho of this deed might reach her also, and be set by her againstsome of that contempt. For the whole truth, which he withheld fromMademoiselle d'Ogeron, was that in venturing his life to save her, hehad been driven by the thought that the deed must be pleasing in theeyes of Miss Bishop could she but witness it.