When at last he broke the brooding silence, his words seemed to have no bearing whatever upon the situation.
«Though you may mean to sell me to Spain, sure there's no reason why ye should let me die of thirst in the meantime. I've a throat that's like the salt ponds on Saltatudos, so I have.»
Although he had a definite purpose to serve, to which he made his thirst a pretext, yet that thirst itself was real, and it was suffered by his captors in common with himself. The air of the room, whose door and window were tightbarred, was stifling. Sam passed a hand across his dank brow and swept away the moisture.
«Hell! The heat!» he muttered. «And now I thirst myself.»
Cahusac licked his dry lips.
«Is there nothing in the house?» he asked.
«No. But it's only a step to The King of France.»
He rose. «I'll go fetch a jack of wine.»
Hope soared wildly in the breast of Captain Blood.
It was precisely for this that he had played. Knowing their drinking habit, and how easily suggestion must arouse their desire to indulge it, he had hoped to send one of them upon that errand, and that the one to go would be Sam. With Cahusac he was sure he could make a deal at once.
And then Cahusac, the fool, ruined all by his excessive eagerness. He, too, was on his feet.
«A jack of wine! Yes, yes!» he cried. «Make haste. I, too, am thirsty.»
Almost was there a quiver in his voice. Sam's ears detected it. He stood arrested, pondering his associate, and reading in his face the little rascal's treacherous intent.
He smiled a little.
«On second thoughts,» said he, slowly, «it will be best if you goes and I stays on guard.»
Cahusac's mouth fell open; almost he turned pale. Inwardly Captain Blood cursed him for a triple fool. «D'ye mean that ye don't trust me?» he demanded. «It ain't that not exactly,» he was answered.
«But it's me that stays.»
Cahusac became really and vehemently angry. «Ah, ca! Name of God! If you don't trust me with him, I don't trust you neither.»
«You don't need to. You know that I dursn't be tempted by his promises. That's why I'm the one to stay.»
For a long moment the two ruffianly associates glowered at each other in angry silence. Then Cahusac's glance became sullen. He shrugged and turned aside, as if grudgingly admittingly that Sam's reasoning was unanswerable. He stood pondering with narrowed eyes. Finally he bestirred himself as if with sudden resolve.
«Ah, bah, I go!» he declared, and abruptly went.
As the door closed on the departing Frenchman, Sam resumed his seat at the table. Blood listened to the quickly receding footsteps until they had faded in the distance; then he broke the silence with a laugh that startled his companion.
Sam looked up sharply.
«What's amusing you now, Captain?»
Blood would have preferred, as we know, to deal with Cahusac. Cahusac was a certainty. Sam was hardly a possibility, obsessed as he obviously was by the fear of Spain. Still, that possibility must be exploited, however slender it might appear.
«Your rashness, bedad!» answered Captain Blood. «Yell not trust him to remain on guard, yet ye trust him out of your sight.»
«And what harm can he do?»
«He might not return alone,» said the Captain darkly.
«Blister me!» cried Sam. «If he tries any such tricks, I'll pistol him at sight. That's how I serves them that gets tricky with me.»
«Ye'd be wise to serve him so in any case. He's a treacherous tyke, Sam, as I should know. Ye've baffled him tonight, and he's not the man to forgive. Ye should know that from his betrayal of me. But ye don't know. Ye've eyes, Sam, but no more sight than a blind puppy. And a head, Sam, but no more brains than are contained in a melon, or you'd never hesitate between Spain and me.»
«Oh, that's it, is it?»
«Just that. Just fifty thousand pieces of eight that I offer, and that I pledge my honour to pay you, as well as pledging my honour to bear no malice and seek no vengeance. Even Cahusac assures you that my word is good, and was ready enough to accept it.»
He paused. The rascally hunter was considering him silently, his face claycoloured and the perspiration standing in beads upon his brow.
Presently he spoke hoarsely.
«Fifty thousand pieces, you said?» quoth he softly.
«To be sure. For where's the need to share with the French cur? D'ye dream he'd share with you if he could make it all his own by slipping a
knife into your back? Come, Sam, make a bold bid for fortune. Damn your fears of Spain! Spain's a phantom! I'll protect you from Spain. You can lie safe aboard my flagship.»
Sam's eyes flashed momentarily, then grew troubled again by thought.
«Fifty thousand. Ah, but the risk!»
«Sure, there's no risk at all,» said Blood. «Not half the risk you run when it comes out that you sold me to Spain, as come out it will. Man, ye'll never leave Tortuga alive. And if ye did, my buccaneers would hunt ye to the end of the earth.»
«But who's to tell?»
«There's always someone. Ye were a fool to undertake this job, a bigger fool to have taken Cahusac for partner. Hasn't he talked openly of vengeance? And won't he, therefore, be the first man suspected? And when they get him, as get him they will, isn't it as sure as judgment that he'll tell on you?»