Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini (best romance ebooks txt) 📖

man in him promptly shook off that torpidity and awoke at the first words Blood spoke to him that night - awoke and wept.

“Escape?” he panted. “O God!” He took his head in his hands, and fell to sobbing like a child.

“Sh! Steady now! Steady!” Blood admonished him in a whisper, alarmed by the lad’s blubbering. He crossed to Pitt’s side, and set a restraining hand upon his shoulder. “For God’s sake, command yourself. If we’re overheard we shall both be flogged for this.”

Among the privileges enjoyed by Blood was that of a hut to himself, and they were alone in this. But, after all, it was built of wattles thinly plastered with mud, and its door was composed of bamboos, through which sound passed very easily. Though the stockade was locked for the night, and all within it asleep by now - it was after midnight - yet a prowling overseer was not impossible, and a sound of voices must lead to discovery. Pitt realized this, and controlled his outburst of emotion.

Sitting close thereafter they talked in whispers for an hour or more, and all the while those dulled wits of Pitt’s were sharpening themselves anew upon this precious whetstone of hope. They would need to recruit others into their enterprise, a half-dozen at least, a half-score if possible, but no more than that. They must pick the best out of that score of survivors of the Monmouth men that Colonel Bishop had acquired. Men who understood the sea were desirable. But of these there were only two in that unfortunate gang, and their knowledge was none too full. They were Hagthorpe, a gentleman who had served in the Royal Navy, and Nicholas Dyke, who had been a petty officer in the late king’s time, and there was another who had been a gunner, a man named Ogle.

It was agreed before they parted that Pitt should begin with these three and then proceed to recruit some six or eight others. He was to move with the utmost caution, sounding his men very carefully before making anything in the nature of a disclosure, and even then avoid rendering that disclosure so full that its betrayal might frustrate the plans which as yet had to be worked out in detail. Labouring with them in the plantations, Pitt would not want for opportunities of broaching the matter to his fellow-slaves.

“Caution above everything,” was Blood’s last recommendation to him at parting. “Who goes slowly, goes safely, as the Italians have it. And remember that if you betray yourself, you ruin all, for you are the only navigator amongst us, and without you there is no escaping.”

Pitt reassured him, and slunk off back to his own hut and the straw that served him for a bed.

Coming next morning to the wharf, Blood found Dr. Whacker in a generous mood. Having slept on the matter, he was prepared to advance the convict any sum up to thirty pounds that would enable him to acquire a boat capable of taking him away from the settlement. Blood expressed his thanks becomingly, betraying no sign that he saw clearly into the true reason of the other’s munificence.

“It’s not money I’ll require,” said he, “but the boat itself. For who will be selling me a boat and incurring the penalties in Governor Steed’s proclamation? Ye’ll have read it, no doubt?”

Dr. Whacker’s heavy face grew overcast. Thoughtfully he rubbed his chin. “I’ve read it - yes. And I dare not procure the boat for you. It would be discovered. It must be. And the penalty is a fine of two hundred pounds besides imprisonment. It would ruin me. You’ll see that?”

The high hopes in Blood’s soul, began to shrink. And the shadow of his despair overcast his face.

“But then…” he faltered. “There is nothing to be done.”

“Nay, nay: things are not so desperate.” Dr. Whacker smiled a little with tight lips. “I’ve thought of it. You will see that the man who buys the boat must be one of those who goes with you - so that he is not here to answer questions afterwards.”

“But who is to go with me save men in my own case? What I cannot do, they cannot.”

“There are others detained on the island besides slaves. There are several who are here for debt, and would be glad enough to spread their wings. There’s a fellow Nuttall, now, who follows the trade of a shipwright, whom I happen to know would welcome such a chance as you might afford him.”

“But how should a debtor come with money to buy a boat? The question will be asked.”

“To be sure it will. But if you contrive shrewdly, you’ll all be gone before that happens.”

Blood nodded understanding, and the doctor, setting a hand upon his sleeve, unfolded the scheme he had conceived.

“You shall have the money from me at once. Having received it, you’ll forget that it was I who supplied it to you. You have friends in England - relatives, perhaps - who sent it out to you through the agency of one of your Bridgetown patients, whose name as a man of honour you will on no account divulge lest you bring trouble upon him. That is your tale if there are questions.”

He paused, looking hard at Blood. Blood nodded understanding and assent. Relieved, the doctor continued:

“But there should be no questions if you go carefully to work. You concert matters With Nuttall. You enlist him as one of your companions and a shipwright should be a very useful member of your crew. You engage him to discover a likely sloop whose owner is disposed to sell. Then let your preparations all be made before the purchase is effected, so that your escape may follow instantly upon it before the inevitable questions come to be asked. You take me?”

So well did Blood take him that within an hour he contrived to see Nuttall, and found the fellow as disposed to the business as Dr. Whacker had predicted. When he left the shipwright, it was agreed that Nuttall should seek the boat required, for which Blood would at once produce the money.

The quest took longer than was expected by Blood, who waited impatiently with the doctor’s gold concealed about his person. But at the end of some three weeks, Nuttall - whom he was now meeting daily - informed him that he had found a serviceable wherry, and that its owner was disposed to sell it for twenty-two pounds. That evening, on the beach, remote from all eyes, Peter Blood handed that sum to his new associate, and Nuttall went off with instructions to complete the purchase late on the following day. He was to bring the boat to the wharf, where under cover of night Blood and his fellow-convicts would join him and make off.

Everything was ready. In the shed, from which all the wounded men had now been removed and which had since remained untenanted, Nuttall had concealed the necessary stores: a hundredweight of bread, a quantity of cheese, a cask of water and some few bottles of Canary, a compass, quadrant, chart, half-hour glass, log and line, a tarpaulin, some carpenter’s tools, and a lantern and candles. And in the stockade, all was likewise in readiness. Hagthorpe, Dyke, and Ogle had agreed to join the venture, and eight others had been carefully recruited. In Pitt’s hut, which he shared with five other rebels-convict, all of whom were to join in this bid for liberty, a ladder had been constructed in secret during those nights of waiting. With this they were to surmount the stockade and gain the open. The risk of detection, so that they made little noise, was negligible. Beyond locking them all into that stockade at night, there was no great precaution taken. Where, after all, could any so foolish as to attempt escape hope to conceal himself in that island? The chief risk lay in discovery by those of their companions who were to be left behind. It was because of these that they must go cautiously and in silence.

The day that was to have been their last in Barbados was a day of hope and anxiety to the twelve associates in that enterprise, no less than to Nuttall in the town below.

Towards sunset, having seen Nuttall depart to purchase and fetch the sloop to the prearranged moorings at the wharf, Peter Blood came sauntering towards the stockade, just as the slaves were being driven in from the fields. He stood aside at the entrance to let them pass, and beyond the message of hope flashed by his eyes, he held no communication with them.

He entered the stockade in their wake, and as they broke their ranks to seek their various respective huts, he beheld Colonel Bishop in talk with Kent, the overseer. The pair were standing by the stocks, planted in the middle of that green space for the punishment of offending slaves.

As he advanced, Bishop turned to regard him, scowling. “Where have you been this while?” he bawled, and although a minatory note was normal to the Colonel’s voice, yet Blood felt his heart tightening apprehensively.

“I’ve been at my work in the town,” he answered. “Mrs. Patch has a fever and Mr. Dekker has sprained his ankle.”

“I sent for you to Dekker’s, and you were not there. You are given to idling, my fine fellow. We shall have to quicken you one of these days unless you cease from abusing the liberty you enjoy. D’ye forget that ye’re a rebel convict?”

“I am not given the chance,” said Blood, who never could learn to curb his tongue.

“By God! Will you be pert with me?”

Remembering all that was at stake, growing suddenly conscious that from the huts surrounding the enclosure anxious ears were listening, he instantly practised an unusual submission.

“Not pert, sir. I… I am sorry I should have been sought….”

“Aye, and you’ll be sorrier yet. There’s the Governor with an attack of gout, screaming like a wounded horse, and you nowhere to be found. Be off, man - away with you at speed to Government House! You’re awaited, I tell you. Best lend him a horse, Kent, or the lout’ll be all night getting there.”

They bustled him away, choking almost from a reluctance that he dared not show. The thing was unfortunate; but after all not beyond remedy. The escape was set for midnight, and he should easily be back by then. He mounted the horse that Kent procured him, intending to make all haste.

“How shall I reenter the stockade, sir?” he enquired at parting.

“You’ll not reenter it,” said Bishop. “When they’ve done with you at Government House, they may find a kennel for you there until morning.”

Peter Blood’s heart sank like a stone through water.

“But…” he began.

“Be off, I say. Will you stand there talking until dark? His excellency is waiting for you.” And with his cane Colonel Bishop slashed the horse’s quarters so brutally that the beast bounded forward all but unseating her rider.

Peter Blood went off in a state of mind bordering on despair. And there was occasion for it. A postponement of the escape at least until to-morrow night was necessary now, and postponement must mean the discovery of Nuttall’s transaction and the asking of questions it would be difficult to answer.

It was in his mind to slink back in the night, once his work at Government House were done, and from the outside of the stockade make known to Pitt and the others his presence, and so have them join him that their project might still be carried out. But in this he reckoned without the Governor, whom he found really in the thrall of a severe attack of gout, and almost