The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ Blood,” he said, through his teeth. “My God, what a reckoning there will be when we meet!”

      Major Mallard turned away his face that he might conceal his smile, and without further words led him a prisoner to the Governor’s house, the house that so long had been Colonel Bishop’s own residence. He was left to wait under guard in the hall, whilst Major Mallard went ahead to announce him.

      Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities.

      “You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter,” she pleaded.

      “To be sure I will,” said Blood. “But I’m afraid the circumstances won’t.”

      She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel.

      “His excellency the Governor will see you now,” said he, and threw wide the door.

      Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting.

      At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing.

      The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral’s flagship.

      “Id is fery boedigal!” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry—you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!”

      THE LOVERS OF YVONNE

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

       Chapter I. Of How a Boy Drank Too Much Wine, and What Came of It

       Chapter II. The Fruit of Indiscretion

       Chapter III. The Fight in the Horse-market

       Chapter IV. Fair Rescuers

       Chapter V. Mazarin, the Match-maker

       Chapter VI. Of How Andrea Became Love-sick

       Chapter VII. The Château de Canaples

       Chapter VIII. The Foreshadow of Disaster

       Chapter IX. Of How a Whip Proved a Better Argument than a Tongue

       Chapter X. The Conscience of Malpertuis

       Chapter XI. Of a Woman's Obstinacy

       Chapter XII. The Rescue

       Chapter XIII. The Hand of Yvonne

       Chapter XIV. Of What Befell at Reaux.

       Chapter XV. Of My Resurrection

       Chapter XVI. The Way of Woman

       Chapter XVII. Father and Son

       Chapter XVIII. Of How I Left Canaples

       Chapter XIX. Of My Return to Paris

       Chapter XX. Of How the Chevalier de Canaples Became a Frondeur

       Chapter XXI. Of the Bargain that St. Auban Drove with My Lord Cardinal

       Chapter XXII. Of My Second Journey to Canaples

       Chapter XXIII. Of How St. Auban Came to Blois

       Chapter XXIV. Of the Passing of St. Auban

       Chapter XXV. Play-acting

       Chapter XXVI. Reparation

      CHAPTER I.

       OF HOW A BOY DRANK TOO MUCH WINE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT

       Table of Contents

      Andrea de Mancini sprawled, ingloriously drunk, upon the floor. His legs were thrust under the table, and his head rested against the chair from which he had slipped; his long black hair was tossed and dishevelled; his handsome, boyish face flushed and garbed in the vacant expression of idiocy.

      “I beg a thousand pardons, M. de Luynes,” quoth he in the thick, monotonous voice of a man whose brain but ill controls his tongue—“I beg a thousand pardons for the unseemly poverty of our repast. 'T is no fault of mine. My Lord Cardinal keeps a most unworthy table for me. Faugh! Uncle Giulio is a Hebrew—if not by birth, by instinct. He carries his purse-strings in a knot which it would break his heart to unfasten. But there! some day my Lord Cardinal will go to heaven—to the lap of Abraham. I shall be rich then, vastly rich, and I shall bid you to a banquet worthy of your most noble blood. The Cardinal's health—perdition have him for the niggardliest rogue unhung!”

      I pushed СКАЧАТЬ