The Black Swan (Historical Novel). Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ Croix since I've undertaken to carry you there. And that's bad enough, as I say. But no Guadeloupe for me.'

      Mistress Priscilla stirred in her seat. She leaned forward. 'Do you speak of pirates, Captain Bransome?'

      'Aye!' said Bransome. 'And that's the fact.'

      Conceiving her alarmed, the Major entered the discussion with the object of reassuring her.

      'Faith, it's not a fact to be mentioned before a lady. And anyway, it's a fact for the timorous only nowadays.'

      'Oho!' Vehemently Captain Bransome blew out his cheekss.

      'Buccaneers,' said Major Sands, 'are things of the past.'

      The Captain's face was seen to turn a deeper red. His contradiction took the form of elaborate sarcasm. 'To be sure, it's as safe cruising in the Caribbean today as on any of the English lakes.'

      After that he gave his attention to his dinner, whilst Major Sands addressed himself to Monsieur de Bernis.

      'You go with us, then, no farther than Sainte Croix?' His manner was more pleasant than it had yet been, for his good-humour was being restored by the discovery that this intrusion was to be only a short one.

      'No farther,' said Monsieur de Bernis.

      The laconic answer did not encourage questions. Nevertheless Major Sands persisted.

      'You will have interests in Sainte Croix?'

      'No interests. No. I seek a ship. A ship to take me to France.' It was characteristic of him to speak in short, sharp sentences.

      The Major was puzzled. 'But, surely, being aboard so fine a ship as this, you might travel comfortably to Plymouth, and there find a sloop to put you across the Channel.'

      'True,' said Monsieur de Bernis. 'True! I had not thought of it.'

      The Major was conscious of a sudden apprehension that he might have said too much. To his dismay he heard Miss Priscilla voicing the idea which he feared he might have given to the Frenchman.

      'You will think of it now, monsieur?'

      Monsieur de Bernis' dark eyes glowed as they rested upon her; but his smile was wistful.

      'By my faith, mademoiselle, you must compel a man to do so.'

      Major Sands sniffed audibly at what he accounted an expression of irrepressible impudent Gallic gallantry. Then, after a slight pause, Monsieur de Bernis added with a deepening of his wistful smile:

      'But, alas! A friend awaits me in Sainte Croix. I am to cross with him to France.'

      The Major interposed, a mild astonishment in his voice.

      'I thought it was at Guadeloupe that you desired to be put ashore, and that your going to Sainte Croix was forced upon you by the Captain.'

      If he thought to discompose Monsieur de Bernis by confronting him with this contradiction, he was soon disillusioned. The Frenchman turned to him slowly still smiling, but the wistfulness had given place to a contemptuous amusement.

      'But why unveil the innocent deception which courtesy to a lady thrust upon me? It is more shrewd than kind, Major Sands.'

      Major Sands flushed. He writhed under the Frenchman's superior smile, and in his discomfort blundered grossly.

      'What need for deceptions, sir?'

      'Add, too: what need for courtesy? Each to his nature, sir. You convict me of a polite deceit, and discover yourself to be of a rude candour. Each of us in his different way is admirable.'

      'That is something to which I can't agree at all. Stab me if I can.'

      'Let mademoiselle pronounce between us, then,' the Frenchman smilingly invited.

      But Miss Priscilla shook her golden head. 'That would be to pronounce against one of you. Too invidious a task.'

      'Forgive me, then, for venturing to set it. Well leave the matter undecided.' He turned to Captain Bransome, 'You said, I think, Captain, that you are calling at Dominica.' Thus he turned the conversation into different channels.

      The Major was left with an uncomfortable sense of being diminished. It rankled in him, and found expression later when with Miss Priscilla he was once more upon the poop.

      'I do not think the Frenchman was pleased at being put down,' said he.

      At table the Major's scarcely veiled hostility to the stranger had offended her sense of fitness. In her eyes he had compared badly with the suave and easy Frenchman. His present smugness revived her irritation.

      'Was he put down?' said she. 'I did not observe it.'

      'You did not...' The prominent pale eyes seemed to swell in his florid face. Then he laughed boisterously. 'You were day-dreaming, Priscilla, surely. You cannot have attended. I let him see plainly that I was not to be hoodwinked by his contradictions. I'm never slow to perceive deceit. It annoyed him to be so easily exposed.'

      'He dissembled his annoyance very creditably.'

      'Oh, aye! As a dissembler I give him full credit. But I could see that I had touched him. Stab me, I could. D'ye perceive the extent of his dissimulation? First it was only that he had not thought of crossing the ocean in the Centaur. Then it was that he has a friend awaiting him in Sainte Croix, and I, knowing all the while that Sainte Croix was forced upon him by the Captain who could not be persuaded to land him, as he wished, at Guadeloupe. I wonder what the fellow has to hide that he should be so desperately clumsy?'

      'Whatever it is, it can be no affair of ours.'

      'You make too sure, perhaps. After all, I am an officer of the Crown, and it's scarcely less than my duty to be aware of all that happens in these waters.'

      'Why plague yourself? In a day or two he will have left us again.'

      'To be sure. And I thank God for 't.'

      'I see little cause for thanksgiving. Monsieur de Bernis should prove a lively companion on a voyage.'

      The Major's brows were raised. 'You conceive him lively?'

      'Did not you? Was there no wit in his parries when you engaged him?'

      'Wit! Lord! I thought him as clumsy a bar as I have met.'

      A black hat embellished by a sweeping plume of blue appeared above the break of the quarter-deck. Monsieur de Bernis was ascending the companion. He came to join them on the poop.

      The Major was disposed to regard his advent as an unbidden intrusion. But Miss Priscilla's eyes gleamed a welcome to the courtly Frenchman; and when she moved aside invitingly to the head of the day-bed, so as to make room for him to sit beside her, Major Sands must mask his vexation as best he could in chill civilities.

      Martinique by now was falling hazily astern, and the Centaur under a full spread of canvas was beating to westward with a larboard list that gently canted her yellow deck.

      Monsieur СКАЧАТЬ