This opposition was epitomized by Wolverstone, who banged the table with a fist that was like a ham, before delivering himself. «To hell with King James and all who serve him! It's enough that we never make war upon English ships or English settlements. But I'll be damned if I account it our duty to protect folk whose hands are against us.»
Captain Blood explained. «The impending Spanish raid is in the nature of reprisals for damage suffered by Spaniards at our hands. This seems to me to impose a duty upon us. We may not be patriots, as ye say, Wolverstone and we may not be altruists. If we go to warn and remain to assist, we do so as mercenaries, whose services are to be paid for by a garrison which should be very glad to hire them. Thus we reconcile duty with profit.»
By these arguments he prevailed.
At dawn, having negotiated the passage, they hove to with the southernmost point of the Virgen Gorda on their starboard quarter, some four miles away. The sea being calm, Captain Blood ordered the boats of the Atrevida to be launched, and her Spanish crew to depart in them, whereafter the two ships proceeded on their way to the Leeward Islands.
Going south of Saba with gentle breezes, they were off the west coast of Antigua on the morning of the next day, and with the Union Jack flying from the maintruck they came to cast anchor in ten fathoms on the north side of the shoal that divides the entrance to Fort Bay.
A few minutes after noon, just as Colonel Courtney, the CaptainGeneral of the Leeward Islands, whose seat of government was in Antigua, was sitting down to dinner with Mrs. Courtney
and Captain Macartney, he was astounded by the announcement that Captain Blood had landed at Saint John's, and desired to wait upon him.
Colonel Courtney, a tall, driedup man of fortyfive, sandy and freckled, stared with pale, redrimmed eyes at Mr. Ives, his young secretary, who had brought the message. «Captain Blood, did you say? Captain Blood? What Captain Blood? Surely not the damned pirate of that name, the gallowsbird from Barbadoes?»
Mr. Ives permitted himself to smile upon his Excellency's excitement. «The same, sir.»
Colonel Courtney flung his napkin amid the dishes on the spread table, and rose, still incredulous. «And he's here? Here? Is he mad? Has the sun touched him? Stab me, I'll have him in irons for his impudence before I dine, and on his way to England before » He broke off. «Egad!» he cried, and swung to his second in command. «We'd better have him in, Macartney.»
Macartney's round face, as red as his coat, showed an amazement no less than the Governor's. That a rascal with a price on his head should have the impudence to pay a morning call on the governor of an English settlement was something that left Captain Macartney almost speechless and more incapable of thought than usual.
Mr. Ives admitted into the long, cool, sparsely furnished room, a tall, spare gentleman, very elegant in a suit of biscuitcoloured taffetas. A diamond of price gleamed amid the choice lace at his throat, a diamond buckle flashed from the band of the plumed hat he carried, a long pearshaped pearl hung from his left ear and glowed against the black curls of his periwig. He leaned upon a goldmounted ebony cane. So unlike a buccaneer was this modish gentleman that they stared in silence into the long, lean, sardonic countenance with its highbridged nose and eyes that looked startlingly blue and cold in a face that was burnt to the colour of a red Indian's. More and more incredulous the Colonel brought out a question with a jerk.
«You are Captain Blood?»
The gentleman bowed. Captain Macartney gasped and desired his vitals to be stabbed. The Colonel said «Egad!» again, and his pale eyes bulged. He looked at his pallid wife, at Macartney, and then again at Captain Blood. «You're a daring rogue. A daring rogue, egad!»
«I see you've heard of me.»
«But not enough to credit this. Ye'll not have come to surrender?»
The buccaneer sauntered forward to the table. Instinctively Macartney rose.
«If you'll be reading this it will save a world of explanations.» And he laid before his Excellency the letter from the Spanish Admiral. «The fortune of war brought it into my hands together with the gentleman to whom it is addressed.»
Colonel Courtney read, changed colour, and handed the sheet to Macartney. Then he stared again at Blood, who spoke as if answering the stare.
«It's here to warn you I am, and at need to serve you.»
«To serve me?»
«Ye seem in need of it. Your ridiculous fort will not stand an hour under Spanish gunfire, and after that you'll have these gentlemen of Castile in the town. Maybe you know how they conduct themselves on these occasions. If not, I'll be after telling you.»
«But stab me!» spluttered Macartney «we're not at war with Spain.»
Colonel Courtney turned in cold fury upon Blood. «It is you who are the author of all our woes. It is your rascalities which bring these reprisals upon us.»
«That's why I've come. Although I think I am a pretext rather than a reason.» Captain Blood sat down. «You've been finding gold in Antigua, as I've heard. Don Miguel will have heard it too. Your militia garrison is not two hundred strong, and your fort, as I've said, is so much rubbish. I bring you a strong ship very heavily armed, and two hundred of the toughest fightingmen to be found in the Caribbean, or anywhere in the world. Of course I'm a damned pirate, and there's a price on my head, and if ye're fastidiously scrupulous ye'll have nothing to say to me. But if ye've any sense, as I hope ye have, it's thanking God ye'll be that I've come, and ye'll make terms with me.»