The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ mean?” The Baron was on his feet, leaning forward across the table.

      “Is it possible that I am obscure? My French, perhaps, is not of the purest, but....”

      “Oh, your French is fluent enough; too fluent at moments, if I may permit myself the observation. Now, look you here, M. le filibustier, I am not a man with whom it is safe to play the fool, as you may very soon discover. You have accepted service of the King of France—you and your men; you hold the rank and draw the pay of a Capitaine de Vaisseau, and these your officers hold the rank of lieutenants. These ranks carry obligations which you would do well to study, and penalties for failing to discharge them which you might study at the same time. They are something severe. The first obligation of an officer is obedience. I commend it to your attention. You are not to conceive yourselves, as you appear to be doing, my allies in the enterprises I have in view, but my subordinates. In me you behold a commander to lead you, not a companion or an equal. You understand me, I hope.”

      “Oh, be sure that I understand,” Captain Blood laughed. He was recovering his normal self amazingly under the inspiring stimulus of conflict. The only thing that marred his enjoyment was the reflection that he had not shaved. “I forget nothing, I assure you, my General. I do not forget, for instance, as you appear to be doing, that the articles we signed are the condition of our service; and the articles provide that we receive one-fifth share. Refuse us that, and you cancel the articles; cancel the articles, and you cancel our services with them. From that moment we cease to have the honour to hold rank in the navies of the King of France.”

      There was more than a murmur of approval from his three captains.

      Rivarol glared at them, checkmated.

      “In effect...” M. de Cussy was beginning timidly.

      “In effect, monsieur, this is your doing,” the Baron flashed on him, glad to have some one upon whom he could fasten the sharp fangs of his irritation. “You should be broke for it. You bring the King’s service into disrepute; you force me, His Majesty’s representative, into an impossible position.”

      “Is it impossible to award us the one-fifth share?” quoth Captain Blood silkily. “In that case, there is no need for beat or for injuries to M. de Cussy. M. de Cussy knows that we would not have come for less. We depart again upon your assurance that you cannot award us more. And things are as they would have been if M. de Cussy had adhered rigidly to his instructions. I have proved, I hope, to your satisfaction, M. le Baron, that if you repudiate the articles you can neither claim our services nor hinder our departure—not in honour.”

      “Not in honour, sir? To the devil with your insolence! Do you imply that any course that were not in honour would be possible to me?”

      “I do not imply it, because it would not be possible,” said Captain Blood. “We should see to that. It is, my General, for you to say whether the articles are repudiated.”

      The Baron sat down. “I will consider the matter,” he said sullenly. “You shall be advised of my resolve.”

      Captain Blood rose, his officers rose with him. Captain Blood bowed.

      “M. le Baron!” said he.

      Then he and his buccaneers removed themselves from the August and irate presence of the General of the King’s Armies by Land and Sea in America.

      You conceive that there followed for M. de Cussy an extremely bad quarter of an hour. M. de Cussy, in fact, deserves your sympathy. His self-sufficiency was blown from him by the haughty M. de Rivarol, as down from a thistle by the winds of autumn. The General of the King’s Armies abused him—this man who was Governor of Hispaniola—as if he were a lackey. M. de Cussy defended himself by urging the thing that Captain Blood had so admirably urged already on his behalf—that if the terms he had made with the buccaneers were not confirmed there was no harm done. M. de Rivarol bullied and browbeat him into silence.

      Having exhausted abuse, the Baron proceeded to indignities. Since he accounted that M. de Cussy had proved himself unworthy of the post he held, M. de Rivarol took over the responsibilities of that post for as long as he might remain in Hispaniola, and to give effect to this he began by bringing soldiers from his ships, and setting his own guard in M. de Cussy’s castle.

      Out of this, trouble followed quickly. Wolverstone coming ashore next morning in the picturesque garb that he affected, his head swathed in a coloured handkerchief, was jeered at by an officer of the newly landed French troops. Not accustomed to derision, Wolverstone replied in kind and with interest. The officer passed to insult, and Wolverstone struck him a blow that felled him, and left him only the half of his poor senses. Within the hour the matter was reported to M. de Rivarol, and before noon, by M. de Rivarol’s orders, Wolverstone was under arrest in the castle.

      The Baron had just sat down to dinner with M. de Cussy when the negro who waited on them announced Captain Blood. Peevishly M. de Rivarol bade him be admitted, and there entered now into his presence a spruce and modish gentleman, dressed with care and sombre richness in black and silver, his swarthy, clear-cut face scrupulously shaven, his long black hair in ringlets that fell to a collar of fine point. In his right hand the gentleman carried a broad black hat with a scarlet ostrich-plume, in his left hand an ebony cane. His stockings were of silk, a bunch of ribbons masked his garters, and the black rosettes on his shoes were finely edged with gold.

      For a moment M. de Rivarol did not recognize him. For Blood looked younger by ten years than yesterday. But the vivid blue eyes under their level black brows were not to be forgotten, and they proclaimed him for the man announced even before he had spoken. His resurrected pride had demanded that he should put himself on an equality with the baron and advertise that equality by his exterior.

      “I come inopportunely,” he courteously excused himself. “My apologies. My business could not wait. It concerns, M. de Cussy, Captain Wolverstone of the Lachesis, whom you have placed under arrest.”

      “It was I who placed him under arrest,” said M. de Rivarol.

      “Indeed! But I thought that M. de Cussy was Governor of Hispaniola.”

      “Whilst I am here, monsieur, I am the supreme authority. It is as well that you should understand it.”

      “Perfectly. But it is not possible that you are aware of the mistake that has been made.”

      “Mistake, do you say?”

      “I say mistake. On the whole, it is polite of me to use that word. Also it is expedient. It will save discussions. Your people have arrested the wrong man, M. de Rivarol. Instead of the French officer, who used the grossest provocation, they have arrested Captain Wolverstone. It is a matter which I beg you to reverse without delay.”

      M. de Rivarol’s hawk-face flamed scarlet. His dark eyes bulged.

      “Sir, you... you are insolent! But of an insolence that is intolerable!” Normally a man of the utmost self-possession he was so rudely shaken now that he actually stammered.

      “M. le Baron, you waste words. This is the New World. It is not merely new; it is novel to one reared amid the superstitions of the Old. That novelty you have not yet had time, perhaps, to realize; therefore I overlook the offensive epithet you have used. But justice is justice in the New World as in the Old, and injustice as intolerable here as there. Now justice demands the enlargement of my officer and the arrest and punishment of yours. That justice I invite you, with submission, to administer.”

      “With submission?” snorted the СКАЧАТЬ