The Black Swan (Historical Novel). Rafael Sabatini

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      CHAPTER 4.

       THE PURSUIT

       Table of Contents

      The historical truth of the situation, as it concerned Sir Henry Morgan and the notorious Tom Leach, emerges so clearly from that conversation in the cabin of the Centaur that little remains to be added by a commentator.

      Morgan had certainly been shaken up by the authorities at home for his lack of zeal in the prosecution of the task entrusted to him of exterminating the sea-brigands who infested the Caribbean. He had been admonished with more severity than justice; for, after all, in the short time that had elapsed since his own retirement from the Brotherhood of the Coast, he had wrought miracles in the discharge of the duty assumed. The very force of his example had in itself gone far. The very fact that he had ranged himself under the banners of law and order, with the consequent disbanding of the buccaneer fleet of which he had been the admiral, had compelled the men who had followed him to drift back gradually to the peaceful arts of logwood-cutting, planting, and boucanning proper. Many more had been induced to quit the seas by the general amnesty Morgan had been authorized to proclaim, backed by a grant of twenty-five acres of land to every filibuster who should choose to take advantage of it. Those who defiantly remained afloat he pursued so actively and relentlessly as to have deserved better of the Government than a reprimand and the threat of deposition and worse. Because in spite of his endeavours there were some sea-robbers who still eluded him, the authorities at home did not scruple to suggest that Morgan might be playing a double game and might be receiving tribute from those who still remained at large.

      Sir Henry was not merely enraged by the insinuation; he was fearful of a solid indictment being built upon it which might end by depriving him of his head. It made the old pirate realize that in accepting a knighthood and the King's commission he had given stern hostages to Fortune. And whilst he may have cursed the one and the other, he addressed himself fearfully to the business of satisfying his terrible taskmasters. The business was rendered heavy by the lawless activities of his old associate Tom Leach, whom Major Sands had named. Tom Leach, as crafty a seaman as he was a brutal, remorseless scoundrel, had gathered about him a host of those buccaneers who were reluctant to forsake their old ways of life, and with these, in a powerful forty-gun ship, the Black Swan, he was in strength upon the Caribbean and wreaking fearful havoc. Being outlawed now, an Ishmael with every man's hand against him, he practised none of the old discrimination of the Brethren of the Coast, as the buccaneers had been called. He was just a brigand, making war upon every ship that sailed, and caring nothing what flag was flown by the vessels he captured, stripped, and sank.

      For four anxious months, Morgan had been hunting him in vain, and so as to encourage others to hunt him, he had put the price of five hundred pounds upon the ruffian's head. Not only had Leach eluded him and grown ever more defiant in his depredations, but two months ago off Granada, when two ships of the Jamaica squadron had cornered him, he had delivered battle so successfully that he had sunk one of the Government frigates and disabled the other.

      Well might Captain Bransome have uttered his prayer that this evil villain should soon come to moorings in execution dock. The following morning was to bring him the urgent dread that, if the prayer was to be answered at all, it was not likely to be answered in time to be of profit to the Centaur.

      Going early on deck to take the air and summon his fellow passengers to breakfast, Monsieur de Bernis found the Captain on the poop, levelling a telescope at a ship some three or four miles away to eastward on their starboard quarter. Beside him stood Major Sands in his burnt-red coat and Miss Priscilla very dainty in a gown of lettuce-green with ivory lace that revealed the lissom beauty of her milk-white neck.

      The wind which had veered to the north had freshened a little since dawn, and swept the ship with a grateful coolness. With topsails furled, and a considerable list to larboard, the Centaur was rippling through the sea on a course almost due west. She was still some leagues south-east of Ayes, and land was nowhere in sight.

      The master lowered his telescope as de Bernis came up. Turning his head, and seeing the Frenchman, he first pointed with the glass, then proffered it.

      'Tell me what you make of her, Mossoo.'

      Monsieur de Bernis took the glass. He had not observed the grave look in Bransome's eyes, for he displayed no urgency in complying. He paused first to exchange a greeting with Miss Priscilla and the Major. But when at last he did bear the glass to his eye, he kept it there for an unconscionable time. When he lowered it, his countenance reflected the gravity worn by the Captain's. Even then he did not speak. He stepped deliberately to the side, and setting his elbows on the rail for steadiness, levelled the glass once more. This time his observations were even more protracted.

      He scanned the tall black hull of that distant ship and the black beak-head carved in the shape of a swan with a gilded crest. He attempted to count the gun ports on her larboard flank as far as this was revealed by the course she was steering. With the same leisureliness he surveyed the mountain of canvas under which she moved, with every sail unfurled, and above which flew no flag.

      So long was he in this inspection that at last the Captain's hard-held patience slipped from him.

      'Well, sir? Well? What dye make of her?'

      Monsieur de Bernis lowered the glass again, and faced his questioner. He was calm and smiling.

      'A fine, powerful ship,' he said casually, and turned to the others. 'Breakfast waits in the cabin.'

      The Major, whose appetite was never feeble, required no further invitation. He departed, taking Miss Priscilla with him.

      As they disappeared into the gangway leading aft, the smile left the face of Monsieur de Bernis. Solemnly his long dark eyes met the Captain's uneasily questioning glance.

      'I desired not to alarm the lady. It is as I think you already suspect. Tom Leach's ship. The Black Swan.'

      'Ye're certain?'

      'As certain as that she's steering to cross your course.'

      The Captain swore in his red beard. 'And this on my last voyage!' he complained. 'Fate might ha' let me end my sailing days in peace. Ye think...D'ye think she means to attack me?'

      Monsieur de Bernis shrugged. 'It is Tom Leach. And he steers to cross your course.'

      The Captain fell to ranting and swearing as a man will who is spirited and yet conscious of impotence when beset. 'The black-hearted, blackguardly swine! What's your fine Sir Henry Morgan doing to leave him loose upon the seas? What for did the King knight him and make him Governor of Jamaica?'

      'Sir Henry will get him in the end. Be sure of that.'

      The Frenchman's calm in the face of this overwhelming peril served only СКАЧАТЬ