The Spaniard looked at him with angry eyes. His face was livid, his mouth scornful. «English or Irish, the truth is you are just a cursed pirate.»
Blood looked wistful. He fetched a sigh. «I'm afraid you are right,» he admitted. «It's a thing I've sought to avoid. But what am I to do now, when Fate thrusts it upon me in 'this fashion, and insists that I make so excellent a beginning?»
III THE KING'S MESSENGER
which circumstance the gaping idlers on the mole assumed that this gentleman had come to stay.
They stared at him with interest, as they would have stared at any stranger. This, however, was a man whose exterior repaid their attention, a man to take the eye. Even the wretched white slaves toiling halfnaked on the fortifications, and the Spanish soldiery guarding them, stood at gaze.
Tall, straight, and vigorously spare, our gentleman was dressed with sombre Spanish elegance in black and silver. The curls of his black periwig fell to his shoulders, and his keen shaven face with its highbridged nose and disdainful lips was shaded by a broad black hat about the crown of which swept a black ostrich plume. Jewels flashed at his breast, a foam of Mechlin almost concealed his hands, and there were ribbons to the long goldmounted ebony cane he carried. A fop from the Alameda he must have seemed but for the manifest vigour of him and the air of assurance and consequence with which he bore himself. He carried his dark finery with an indifference to the broiling tropical heat which argued an iron constitution, and his glance was so imperious that the eyes of the inquisitive fell away abashed before it.
He asked the way to the Governor's residence, and the officer commanding the guard over the toiling white prisoners detached a soldier to conduct him.
Beyond the square, which architecturally, and saving for the palm trees throwing patches of black shadow on the dazzling white sundrenched ground, might have belonged to some little town in Old Spain, past the church with its twin spires and marble steps, they came, by tall, wroughtiron gates, into a garden, and by an avenue of acacias to a big white house with deep external galleries all clad in jessamine. Negro servants in ridiculously rich redandyellow liveries admitted our gentleman, and went to announce to the Governor of Porto Rico the arrival of Don Pedro de Queiroz on a mission from King Philip.
Not every day did a messenger from the King of Spain arrive in this almost the least of his Catholic Majesty's overseas dominions. Indeed, the thing had never happened before, and Don Jayme de Villamarga, whilst thrilled to the marrow by the announcement, knew not whether to assign the thrill to pride or to alarm.
A man of middle height, big of head and paunch and of less than mediocre intelligence, Don Jayme was one of those gentlemen who best served Spain by being absent from her, and this no doubt had been considered in appointing him Governor of Porto Rico. Not even his awe of majesty, represented by Don Pedro, could repress his naturally selfsufficient manner. He was pompous in his reception of him, and remained unintimidated by the cold, haughty stare of Don Pedro's eyes, eyes of a singularly deep blue, contrasting oddly with his bronzed face. A Dominican monk, elderly, tall, and gaunt, kept his Excellency company.
«Sir, I give you welcome.» Don Jayme spoke as if his mouth were full. «I trust you will announce to me that I have the honour to meet with his Majesty's approbation.»
Don Pedro made him a deep obeisance, with a sweep of his plumed hat, which, together with his cane, he thereafter handed to one of the Negro lackeys. «It is to signify the royal approbation that I am here, happily, after some adventures. I have just landed from the San Tomas, after a voyage of many vicissitudes. She has gone on to San Domingo, and it may be three or four days before she returns to take me off again. For that brief while I must make free with your Excellency's hospitality.» He seemed to claim it as a right rather than ask it as a favour.
«Ah!» was all that Don Jayme permitted himself to answer. And with head on one side, a fatuous smile on the thick lips under his grizzled moustache, he waited for the visitor to enter into details of the royal message.
The visitor, however, displayed no haste. He looked about him at the cool, spacious room with its handsome furnishings of carved oak and walnut, its tapestries and pictures, all imported from the Old World, and inquired, in that casual manner of the man who is at home in every environment, if he might be seated. His Excellency, with some loss of dignity, made haste to set a chair.
Composedly, with a thin smile which Don Jayme disliked, the messenger sat down and crossed his legs.
«We are,» he announced, «in some sort related, Don Jayme.»
Don Jayme stared. «I am not aware of the honour.»
«That is why I am at the trouble of informing you. Your marriage, sir, established the bond. I am a distant cousin of Dona Hernanda.»
«Oh! My wife!» His Excellency's tone in some subtle way implied contempt for that same wife and her relations. «I had remarked your name: Rueiroz.» This also explained to