 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. CAPTAIN BLOOD by Raphael Sabatini CHAPTER I THE MESSENGER Peter Blood, Bachelor of Medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and attended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater. Sternly disapproving eyes considered him from a window opposite, but went disregarded. Mr. Blood's attention was divided between his task and the stream of humanity in the narrow street below, pouring for the second time that day in the direction of Castle Field, where, earlier in the afternoon, Ferguson, the Duke's chaplain, had preached a sermon that contained more treason than divinity. These straggling, excited groups were mainly composed of men with green bows in their hats and the most ludicrous of weapons in their hands. Then, it is true, shouldered fouling pieces, and here and there a sword was brandished. But more of them were armed with clubs, and most of them trailed the mammoth spikes fashioned out of sides, as formidable to the eye as they were clumsy to the hand. There were weavers, brewers, carpenters, smiths, masons, bricklayers, cobblers, and representatives of every other of the trades of peace among these improvised men of war. Bridgewater, like Taunton, had yielded so generously of its manhood to the service of the bastard Duke that, for any to abstain whose age and strength admitted of his bearing arms, was to brand himself a coward or a papist. Yet Peter Blood, who was not only able to bear arms, but trained and skilled in their use, who was certainly no coward and a papist only when it so suited him, tended his geraniums and smoked his pipe on that warm July evening as indifferently as if nothing were afoot. One other thing he did. He flung after those far-fevered enthusiasts a line of horrors, a poet for whose work he had earlier conceived an inordinate attachment. Cuo, cuo, cheletis ruitis, and now, perhaps you guess why the hot intrepid blood, inherited from the roving sires of his Somersetshire mother, remained cool amidst all this frenzied, fanatical heat of rebellion, why the turbulent spirit which had forced him once from the sedate academical bonds his father would have imposed upon him, should now remain quiet in the very midst of turbulence. You realize how he regarded these men who were rallying to the banners of liberty, the banners woven by the virgins of Taunton, the girls from the seminaries of Miss Plake and Mrs. Musgrove, who, as the ballad runs, had ripped open their silk petticoats to make colors for King Monmouth's army. That Latin line contemptuously flung after them as they clattered down the cobbled streets, revealed his mind. To him they were fools rushing in wicked frenzy to their ruin. You see, he knew too much about this fellow Monmouth and their pretty brown sled who had borne him, to be deceived by the legend of legitimacy on the strength of which this standard of rebellion had been raised. He had read the absurd proclamation posted at the cross at Bridgewater, as it had been posted also at Taunton and elsewhere, sending forth that, quote, upon the decease of our sovereign Lord Charles II, the right of succession to the crown of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, with the dominions and territories there unto belonging, did legally descend and devolve upon the most illustrious and high-born Prince James Duke of Monmouth, son and heir apparent, to the said King Charles II, close, quote. It had moved him to laughter, as had the further announcement that, quote, James, Duke of York did first cause the said late King to be poisoned, and immediately thereupon did usurp and invade the crown, close, quote. He knew not which was the greater lie, for Mr. Blood had spent a third of his life in the Netherlands, where the same James Scott, who now proclaimed himself James II by the grace of God, King, etc., first saw the light some thirty-six years ago, and he was acquainted with the story current there of the fellow's real paternity, far from being legitimate, by virtue of a pretended secret marriage between Charles Stewart and Lucy Walter, it was possible that this Monmouth, who now proclaimed himself King of England, was not even the illegitimate child of the late Sovereign. What but ruin and disaster could be at the end of this grotesque pretension! How could it be hoped that England would ever swallow such a Perkin? And it was on his behalf to uphold his fantastic claim that these West Country clods, led by a few armagreous wigs, had been seduced into rebellion, quote, quote, chelesti ruitis. He laughed and sighed in one, but the laugh dominated the sigh, for Mr. Blood was unsympathetic, as our most self-sufficient men, and he was very self-sufficient. Adversity had taught him so to be. A more tender-hearted man, possessing his vision and his knowledge, might have found cause for tears in the contemplation of these ardent, simple, nonconformist sheep going forth to the shambles, escorted to the rallying ground on Castlefield by wives and daughters, sweethearts and mothers, sustained by the delusion that they were to take the field in defense of right, of liberty, and of religion. For he knew, as all Bridgewater knew, and had known now for some hours, that it was Manmau's intention to deliver battle that same night. The Duke was to lead a surprise attack upon the royalist army under Feversham, that was now encamped on Sedgemore. He thought it very probable that Lord Feversham was equally well informed, and, if in this assumption he was wrong, at least he was justified in it. He was not to suppose the royalist commander so indifferently skilled in the trade he followed. Mr. Blood knocked the ashes from his pipe, and drew back to close his windows. As he did so, his glance, travelling straight across the street, at last met the glance of those hostile eyes that watched him. There were two pairs, and they belonged to the Mrs. Pitt, two amiable, sentimental maiden-ladies who yielded to none in Bridgewater in their worship of this handsome manmouth. Mr. Blood smiled and inclined his head, for he was on friendly terms with these ladies, one of whom indeed had been for a little while his patient. But there was no response to his greeting. Instead the eyes gave him back a stare of cold disdain. The smile on his thin lips grew a little broader, a little less pleasant. He understood the reason of that hostility, which had been daily growing in this past week since manmouth had come to turn the brains of women of all ages. The Mrs. Pitt, he apprehended, condemned him that he, a young and vigorous man of a military training which might now be valuable to the cause, should stand aloof, that he should placently smoke his pipe and tend his geraniums on this evening of all evenings, when men of spirit were rallying to the Protestant champion, offering their blood to place him on the throne, where he belonged. If Mr. Blood had condescended to debate the matter with these ladies, he might have urged that, having had his fill of wandering and adventuring, he was now embarked upon the career for which he had been originally intended, and for which his studies had equipped him, that he was a man of medicine, and not of war, a healer, not a slayer. But they would have answered him, he knew, that in such a cause it behooved every man who deemed himself a man to take up arms. They would have pointed out their own nephew Jeremiah, who was by trade a sailor, the master of a ship, which, by an ill chance for that young man, had come to anchor at this season in Bridgewater Bay, had quitted the helm to snatch up a musket in defense of right. But Mr. Blood was not of those who argue. As I have said, he was a self-sufficient man. He closed the window, drew the curtains, and turned to the pleasant candle-lighted room, and the table at which Mrs. Barlow, his housekeeper, was in the very act of spreading supper. To her, however, he spoke aloud his thought. It's out of favor I am with the vinegary virgins over the way. He had a pleasant, vibrant voice, whose metallic ring was softened and muted by the Irish accent, which in all his wanderings he had never lost. It was a voice that could woo seductively and caressingly, or command in such a way as to compel obedience. Indeed, the man's whole nature was in that voice of his. For the rest of him he was tall and spare, swarthy of tent, as a gypsy with eyes that were startlingly blue in that dark face and under those level black brows. In their glance those eyes, flanking a high-bridged intrepid nose, were of singular penetration and of a steady haughtiness that went well with his firm lips. Though dressed in black as became as calling, yet it was within elegance derived from the love of clothes that as peculiar to the adventurer he had been, rather than to the staid, medicus he now was. His coat was of fine camelot, and it was laced with silver. There were ruffles of mechelin at his wrists and a mechelin cravat in case to his throat. His great black periwig was as sedulously curled as any at Whitehall. Seeing him thus and perceiving his real nature, which was plain upon him, you might have been tempted to speculate how long such a man would be content to lie by in this little backwater of the world into which Chance had swept him some six months ago. How long he would continue to pursue the trade for which he had qualified himself before he had begun to live! Difficult of belief, though it may be, when you know his history, previous and subsequent. Yet it is possible that but for the trick that fate was about to play on him, he might have continued this peaceful existence, settling down completely to the life of a doctor in this summer-sitchire haven. It is possible, but not probable. He was the son of an Irish medicus, by a summer-sitchire lady in whose veins ran the rover blood of their frobishers, which may account for a certain wildness that had early manifested itself in his disposition. This wildness had profoundly alarmed his father, who, for an Irishman, was of a singularly peace-loving nature. He had early resolved that the boys should follow his own honorable profession, and Peter Blood, being quick to learn and oddly greedy of knowledge, had satisfied his parent by receiving at the age of twenty the degree of baccalaureate medicine at Trinity College Dublin. His father survived that satisfaction by three months only. His mother had then been dead some years already. Thus Peter Blood came into an inheritance of some few hundred pounds, with which he had set out to see the world, and give, for a season, a free reign to that restless spirit by which he was imbued. A set of curious chances led him to take service with the Dutch, then at war with France, and a predilection for the sea made him elect that this service should be upon that element. He had the advantage of a commission under the famous De Royter, and fought in the Mediterranean engagement in which that great Dutch admiral lost his life. Under the peace of Nijmegen his movements are obscure, but we know that he spent two years in a Spanish prison, though we do not know how he contrived to get there. It may be due to this that upon his release he took his sword to France, and saw a service with the French in their warring upon the Spanish Netherlands. Having reached, at last, the age of thirty-two, his appetite for adventure surfeted, his health having grown indifferent as the result of a neglected wound. He was suddenly overwhelmed by homesickness. He took ship from Nantes with intent to cross the island, but the vessel being driven by stress of weather into Bridgewater Bay, and Blood's health having grown worse during the voyage, he decided to go ashore there, additionally urged to it by the fact that it was his mother's native soil. Thus in January of that year sixteen eighty-five he had come to Bridgewater, possessor of a fortune that was approximately the same as that with which he had originally set out from Dublin eleven years ago. Because he liked the place in which his health was rapidly restored to him, and because he conceived that he had passed through adventures enough for a man's lifetime, he determined to settle there, and take up, at last, the profession of medicine from which he had, with so little profit, broken away. That is all his story, or so much of it as matters, up to that night, six months later, when the battle of Sedgemore was fought. Deeming the impending action no affair of his, as indeed it was not, and indifferent to the activity with which Bridgewater was that night a gog, Mr. Blood closed his ears to the sounds of it, and went early to bed. He was peacefully asleep, long before eleven o'clock, at which hour, as you know, Thomas rode, but with his rebel host, along the Bristol Road, circuitously to avoid the marshland that laid directly between himself and the Royal Army. You also know that his numerical advantage, possibly counterbalanced by the greater steadiness of the regular troops on the other side, and the advantages he derived from falling by surprise upon an army that was more or less asleep, were all lost to him by blundering and bad leadership, before ever he was at grips with Feversham. The armies came into collision in the neighborhood of two o'clock in the morning. Mr. Blood slept undisturbed, through the distant boom of cannon, not until four o'clock, when the sun was rising to dispel the last wisps of mist over that stricken field of battle. Did he awaken from his tranquil slumbers? He sat up in bed, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and collected himself. Blows were thundering upon the door of his house, and a voice was calling incoherently. This was the voice that had aroused him. Conceiving that he had to do with some urgent obstetrical case, he reached for bed-gown and slippers to go below. On the landing he almost collided with Mrs. Barlow, new-risen and unsightly, in a state of panic. He quieted her cluckings with a word of reassurance, and went himself to open. Therein, slanting golden light of the new-risen sun, stood a breathless, wild-eyed man and a steaming horse. Smothered in dust and grime, his clothes and disarray, the less sleeve of his doublet hanging in rags, the young man opened his lips to speak, yet for a long moment remained speechless. In that moment Mr. Blood recognized him for the young ship-master Jeremiah Pitt, the nephew of the maiden-lady's opposite, one who had been drawn by the general enthusiasm into the vortex of that rebellion. The street was rousing, awakened by the sailor's noisy invasion. The doors were opening, and lattices were being unlatched for the protrusion of anxious, inquisitive heads. Take your time now, said Mr. Blood. I never knew speed made by overhaste. But the wild-eyed lad paid no heed to the admonition. He plunged headlong into speech. It is Lord Gildoy, he panted. He is soar-wounded at Oglethorpe's farm by the river I bore him thither, and he sent me for you. Come away, come away!" He would have clutched the doctor, and hailed him forth by force in bed-gown and slippers as he was. But the doctor eluded that too eager hand. To be sure, I'll come, said he. He was distressed. Gildoy had been a very friendly, generous patron to him, since his settling in these parts, and Mr. Blood was eager enough to do what he now could do to discharge the debt, grieved that the occasion should have arisen, and in such a manner, for he knew quite well that the rash young nobleman had been an active agent of the Dukes. To be sure, I'll come, but first give me leave to get some clothes and other things that I may need. There's no time to lose. Be easy now. I'll lose none. I tell you again, you'll go quickest by going leisurely. Come in. Take a chair. He threw open the door of a parlor. Young Pitt waved aside the invitation. How—how wait here! Make haste in God's name! Mr. Blood went off to dress, and to fetch a case of instruments. Just concerning the precise nature of Lord Gildoy's hurt could wait until they were on their way. Whilst he pulled on his boots, he gave Mrs. Barlow instructions for the day, which included the matter of a dinner. He was not destined to eat. When at last he went forth again, Mrs. Barlow, clucking after him like a disgruntled fowl, he found young Pitt smothered in a crowd of scared, half-dressed townsfolk, mostly women, who had come hastening for news of how the battle had sped. The news he gave them was to be read in the lamentations with which they disturbed the morning air. At sight of the doctor, dressed and booted, a case of instruments tucked under his arm, the messenger disengaged himself from those who pressed about, shook off his weariness, and the two tearful ants that clung most closely, and seizing the bridle of his horse, he climbed to the saddle. Come along, sir, he cried, mount behind me. Mr. Blood, without wasting words, did as he was bidden. Pitt touched the horse with his spur. The little crowd gave way, and thus upon the cropper of that doubly laden horse clinging to the belt of his companion, Peter Blood set out upon his odyssey, for this Pitt, in whom he beheld no more than a messenger of a wounded rebel gentleman, was indeed the very messenger of fate. CHAPTER II KERK'S DRAGONES Oglethorpe's farm stood a mile or so to the south of Bridgewater on the right bank of the river. It was a straggling tutor building, showing gray above the ivy that clothed its lower parts. Approaching it now, through the fragrant orchards amid which it seemed to drowse, an Arcadian piece beside the waters of the parrot sparkling in the morning sunlight, Mr. Blood might have had difficulty in believing it part of a world tormented by strife in bloodshed. On the bridge, as they had been riding out of Bridgewater, they had met a vanguard of fugitives from the field of battle, weary, broken men, many of them wounded, all of them terror-stricken, staggering in speedless haste with the last remnants of their strength into the shelter which it was their vain allusion the town would afford them. Eyes glazed with lassitude and fear looked up piteously out of haggard faces at Mr. Blood and his companion as they rode forth. Horse voices cried a warning that merciless pursuit was not far behind. Undeterred, however, young Pitt rode a mane along the dusty road by which these poor fugitives from that swift route on Sedgemore came flocking in ever-increasing numbers. Presently, he swung aside, and quitting the road took to a pathway that crossed the dewy metal ends. Even here they met odd groups of these human derelicts who were scattering in all directions, looking fearfully behind them as they came through the long grass, expecting at every moment to see the red coats of the dragoons. But as Pitt's direction was a southward one, bringing them ever nearer to Feversham's headquarters, they were presently clear of that human flotsam and jetsam of the battle, and riding through the peaceful orchards heavy with the ripening fruit that was soon to make its annual yield of cider. At last they alighted on the kidney stones of the courtyard, and Baines, the master of the homestead, grave of countenance and flustered of manner, gave them welcome. In the spacious stone-flagged hall the doctor found Lord Gildoy, a very tall and dark young gentleman, prominent of chin and nose, stretched on a cane day-bed under one of the tall, mullioned windows in the care of Mrs. Baines and her comely daughter. His cheeks were leaden-hued, his eyes closed, and from his blue lips came with each labored breath a faint, moaning noise. Mr. Blood stood for a moment silently considering his patient. He deplored that a youth with such bright hopes in life as Lord Gildoy's should have risked all, perhaps existence itself, to forward the ambition of a worthless adventurer. Because he had liked and honored this brave lad, he paid his case the tribute of a sigh. Then he knelt to his task, ripped away doublet and underwear to lay bare his lordship's mangled side, and called for water and linen and what else he needed for his work. He was still intent upon it, half an hour later, when the dragoons invaded the homestead. The clatter of hooves and hoarse shouts that heralded their approach disturbed him not at all. For one thing he was not easily disturbed, for another his task absorbed him. But his lordship, who had now recovered consciousness, showed considerable alarm, and the battle-stained Jeremy Pitt sped to cover in a clothes-press. Baines was uneasy, and his wife and daughter trembled. Mr. Blood reassured them. Why, what's to fear, he said? It's a Christian country this, and Christian men do not make war upon the wounded, nor upon those who harbor them. He still had, you see, illusions about Christians. He held a glass of cordial, prepared under his directions, to his lordship's lips. Give your mind peace, my lord. The worst is done. And then they came rattling and clanking into the stone-flagged hall, around dozen jack-booted lobster-coated troopers of the Changer's Regiment, led by a sturdy black-browed fellow with a deal of gold lace around the breast of his coat. Baines stood his ground, his attitude half defiant, whilst his wife and daughter shrank away in renewed fear. Mr. Blood, at the head of the day-bed, looked over his shoulder to take stock of the invaders. The officer barked in order, which brought his men to an attentive halt. Then, swaggered forward, his gloved hand bearing down the pommel of his sword, his spurs jingling musically as he moved. He announced his authority to the yeoman. I am Captain Hobart of Colonel Kirk's Dragoons. What rebels do you harbor? The yeoman took alarm at that ferocious truculence. It expressed itself in his trembling voice. I am no harborer of rebels, sir. This wounded gentleman I can see for myself. The captain stomped forward to the day-bed and scowled down upon the gray-faced sufferer. No need to ask how he came to the state and by his wounds. A damned rebel. And that's enough for me. He flung a command at his Dragoons. Out with him, my lads. Mr. Blood got between the day-bed and the troopers. In the name of humanity, sir, said he, on a note of anger. This is England, not Tangiers. The gentleman is in sore case. He may not be moved without peril to his life. Captain Hobart was amused. Oh, I am to be tender of the lives of these rebels. Odd's blood. Do you think it's to benefit his health we're taking him? There's gallows being planted along the road from Weston to Bridgewater, and he'll serve for one of them as well as another. Colonel Kirk will learn these non-conforming oafs, something they'll not forget in generations. You're hanging men without trial, faith then. It's mistaken I am. We're in Tangiers, after all, it seems, where your regiment belongs. The captain considered him with a kindling eye. He looked him over from the soles of his riding-boots to the crown of his pair-wig. He noted the spare, active frame, the arrogant poise of the head, the air of authority that invested Mr. Blood, and soldier recognized soldier. The captain's eyes narrowed. Recognition went further. Who the hell may you be? He exploded. My name is Blood, sir, Peter Blood, at your service. Aye, aye, cod so. What's the name? You were in French service once. Were you not? If Mr. Blood was surprised, he did not betray it. I was. Then I remember you five years ago or more. You were in Tangiers. That is so. I knew your Colonel. Faith! You may be renewing the acquaintance. The captain laughed, unpleasantly. What brings you here, sir? This wounded gentleman. I was fetched to attend him. I am a medicus. A doctor? You? Scorn of that lie, as he conceived it, rang in the heavy, hectoring tone. Medecine peccolorius, said Mr. Blood. Don't fling your French at me, man, snapped Hobart. Speak English! Mr. Blood's smile annoyed him. I am a physician practicing my calling in the town of Bridgewater. The captain sneered, which you reach by way of lime regis in the following of your bastard duke. It was Mr. Blood's turn to sneer. If your wit were as big as your voice, my dear, it's the great man you'd be by this. For a moment the dragoon was speechless. The color deepened in his face. You may find me great enough to hang you. Faith? Yes. You've the look and the manners of a hangman. But if you practice your trade on my patient here, you may be putting a rope around your own neck. He's not the kind you may string up, and no questions asked. He has the right to a trial, and the right to a trial by his peers. The captain was taken aback by these words, which Mr. Blood had stressed. Sure now any but a fool, or a savage, would have asked his name before ordering him to the gallows, the gentleman is my lord Gildoy. And then his lordship spoke for himself in a weak voice. I make no concealment of my association with the Duke of Monmouth. I'll take the consequences. But if you please, I'll take them after trial by my peers, as the doctor has said. The feeble voice ceased, and was followed by a moment's silence. As is common in many ways, I'm not sure if it's true or not. As is common in many blustering men, there was a deal of timidity deep down in Hobart. The announcement of his lordship's rank had touched those depths. A servile upstart, he stood in awe of titles, and he stood in awe of his colonel. Percy Kirk was not lenient with blunderers. By a gesture, he checked his men. He must consider. Mr. Blood, observing his pause, added further matter for his consideration. You'll be remembering, captain, that lord Gildoy will have friends and relatives on the Tory side, who will have something to say to Colonel Kirk if his lordship should be handled like a common felon. He'll go wherely, captain, or, as I have said, it's a halter for your neck. You'll be weaving this morning, captain Hobart. Swept the warning aside with a bluster of contempt, but he acted upon it nonetheless. Take up the day bed, said he, and convey him on that to Bridgewater. Watch him in the jail until I take order about him. He may not survive the journey, Blood remonstrated. He's in no case to be moved. So much the worse for him. My affair is to round up rebels. He confirmed his order by a gesture. Two of his men took up the day bed, and swung to depart with it. Gildoy made a feeble effort to put forth a hand towards Mr. Blood. Sir, he said, you leave me in your depth. If I live, I shall study how to discharge it. Mr. Blood bowed for answer. Then to the men, bear him steadily, he commanded. His life depends on it. As his lordship was carried out, the captain became brisk. He turned upon the yeoman. What other cursed rebels do you harbour? None other, sir. His lordship we've dealt with his lordship for the present. We'll deal with you in a moment when we've searched your house. And by God, if you've lied to me! He broke off, snarling, to give an order. Four of his dragoons went out. In a moment they were heard moving noisily in the adjacent room. Meanwhile the captain was questing about the hall, sounding the wainscotting with the butt of a pistol. Mr. Blood saw no profit to himself in lingering. By your leave it's a very good day, I'll be wishing you, said he. By my leave you'll remain awhile, the captain ordered him. Mr. Blood shrugged and sat down. You're tiresome, he said. I wonder your colonel hasn't discovered it yet. But the captain did not heed him. He was stooping to pick up a soiled and dusty hat in which there was penned a little bunch of oak leaves. It had been lying near the clothes-press in which the unfortunate pit had taken refuge. The captain smiled malevolently. His eyes raked the room, resting first sardonically on the yeoman, then on the two women in the background, and finally on Mr. Blood, who sat with one leg thrown over the other in an attitude of indifference that was far from reflecting his mind. Then the captain stepped to the press and pulled open one of the wings of its massive oaken door. He took the huddled inmate by the collar of his doublet and lugged him out into the open. And who the devil's this, quote he, another nobleman? Mr. Blood had a vision of those gallows of which Captain Hobart had spoken, and his unfortunate young shipmaster going to adorn one of them. Strung up, without trial, in the place of the other victim of whom the captain had been cheated. On the spot he invented not only a title, but a whole family for the young rebel. Faith, you've said it, Captain. This is Viscount Pitt, first cousin to Sir Thomas Vernon, who's married to that slut, Mal Kirk, sister to your own Colonel, and sometime lady in waiting upon King James Queen. Both the captain and his prisoner gasped. But whereas thereafter young Pitt discreetly held his peace, the captain wrapped out a nasty oath. He considered his prisoner again. He's lying. Is he not? he demanded, seizing the lad by the shoulder and glaring into his face. He's rallying me by God. If you believe that, said Blood, hang him and see what happens to you. The dragoon glared at the doctor and then at his prisoner. Ah! he thrust the lad into the hands of his men. Fetch him along to Bridgewater and make fast. That fellow also, he pointed to Baines. We'll show him what it means to harbor and comfort rebels. There was a moment of confusion. Baines struggled in the grip of the troopers, protesting vehemently. The terrified women screamed until silence by the greater terror. The captain strode across to them. He took the girl by the shoulders. She was a pretty golden-headed creature with soft blue eyes that looked up entreatingly, piteously, into the face of the dragoon. He leered upon her his eyes aglow, took her chin in his hand and set her shuttering by his brutal kiss. It's an earnest, he said, smiling grimly. Let that quiet you, little rebel, till I've done with these rogues. And he swung away again, leaving her faint and trembling in the arms of her anguished mother. His men stood, grinning, awaiting orders. The two prisoners, now fast, pinioned. But Cornette Drake had charge of them. His smoldering eye again sought the cowering girl. I'll stay awhile to search out this place. There may be other rebels hidden here, as an afterthought he added, and take this fellow with you. He pointed to Mr. Blood. Beaster! Mr. Blood started out of his musings. He had been considering that, in his case of instruments, there was a lancet with which he might perform, on Captain Hobart, a beneficial operation, a beneficial that is to humanity. In any case, the dragoon was obviously plethoric and would be better for a bloodletting, the difficulty lay in making the opportunity. He was beginning to wonder if he could lure the captain aside with some tale of hidden treasure, when this untimely interruption set a term to that interesting speculation. He sought to temporize. Faith, it will suit me very well, said he, for bridge-water is my destination, and but that ye detain me, I'd have been on my way thither now. Your destination there will be the jail. You're surely joking. There's a gallows for you if you prefer it, it's merely a question of now, or later. Rude hands seized Mr. Blood, and that precious lancet was, in the case, on the table, out of reach. He twisted out of the grip of the dragoons for he was strong and agile, but they closed with him again immediately, and bore him down. Penning him to the ground, they tied his wrists behind his back, then roughly pulled him to his feet again. Take him away, said Hobart shortly, and turned to issue his orders to the other waiting dragoons. Go search the house, from attic to cellar, then report to me here. The soldiers trailed out by the door leading to the interior. Mr. Blood was thrust by his guards into the courtyard, where pit and bains already waited. From the threshold of the hall he looked back at Captain Hobart, and his sapphire eyes were blazing. On his lips trembled a threat of what he would do to Hobart if he should happen to survive this business. Be times he remembered that to utter it were probably to extinguish his chance of living to execute it. For today the king's men were masters in the west, and the west was regarded as enemy country to be subjected to the worst horror of war by the victorious side. Here a captain of horse was for the moment lord of life and death. Under the apple trees and the orchard Mr. Blood and his companions in misfortune were made fast each to a trooper's stirrup leather. Then at the sharp order of the cornet the little troop started for bridge-water. As they set out there was the fullest confirmation of Mr. Blood's hideous assumption that to the dragoons this was a conquered enemy territory. There were sounds of rending timbers, of furniture smashed and overthrown, the shouts and laughter of brutal men. To announce that this hunt for rebels was no more than a pretext for pillage and destruction. Finally, above all other sounds came the piercing screams of a woman in acutist agony. Baines checked in his stride and swung round writhing his face ashen. As a consequence he was jerked from his feet by the rope that attached him to the stirrup leather and he was dragged helplessly a yard or two before the trooper reigned in, cursing him foully and striking him with the flat of his sword. It came to Mr. Blood as he trudged forward under the laden apple trees on that fragrant delicious July morning that man, as he had long suspected, was the vilest work of God and that only a fool would set himself up as a healer of a species that was best exterminated. End of Chapter 2 Read by Dennis Sayers for LibriVox in Modesto, California, Spring 2005 Chapter 3 Lord Chief Justice It was not until two months later on the 19th of September, if you must have the actual date, that Peter Blood was brought to trial upon a charge of high treason. Chapter 3 The Lord Chief Justice It was not until two months later on the 19th of September, if you must have the actual date, that Peter Blood was brought to trial upon a charge of high treason. We know that he was not guilty of this, but we need not doubt that he was quite capable of it by the time he was indicted. Those two months of inhuman, unspeakable imprisonment had moved his mind to a cold and deadly hatred of King James and his representatives. It says something for his fortitude that in all the circumstances he should still have a mind at all. And yet, terrible as was the position of this entirely innocent man, he had cause for thankfulness on two accounts. The first of these was that he should have been brought to trial at all. The second that his trial took place on the date and not a day earlier. In the very delay which exacerbated him, lay, he did not realize it, his only chance of avoiding the gallows. Easily, but for the favor of fortune, he might have been one of those hauled on the moral of the battle, more or less haphazard from the overflowing jail at Bridgewater to be summarily hanged in the marketplace by the blood thirsty Colonel Kirk. There was, about the Colonel of the Tangier's Regiment, a deadly dispatch which might have disposed in like fashion of all those prisoners, numerous as they were, but for the vigorous intervention of Bishop Muse, which put an end to the drum-head court's marshal. Even so, in that first week after Sedgemore, Kirk and Fieberschem contrived between them to put to death over a hundred men after a trial so summary as to be no trial at all. They required human frates for the gibbets with which they were planting the countryside, and they little cared how they procured them or what innocent lives they took. What, after all, was the life of a clod. The executioners were kept busy with rope and chopper and cauldrons of pitch. I spare you the details of that nauseating picture. It is, after all, with the fate of Peter Blood that we are concerned rather than with that of the Monmouth rebels. He survived to be included in one of those melancholy droves of prisoners who, chained in pairs, were marched from Bridgewater to Taunton. Those who were too sorely wounded to march were conveyed in carts into which they were brutally crowded, their wounds undressed and festering. Some were fortunate enough to die upon the way. When Blood insisted upon the right to exercise his art so as to relieve some of the suffering, he was accounted importunate and threatened with a flogging. If he had one regret now, it was that he had not been out with Monmouth. That, of course, was illogical, but you can hardly expect logic from a man in his position. His chain companion, on that dreadful march, was the same Jeremy Pitt who had been the agent of his present misfortunes. The young shipmaster had remained his close companion after their common arrest. Hence, fortuitously, had they been chained together in the crowded prison, where they were almost suffocated by the heat and the stench during those days of July, August, and September. Scraps of news filtered into the jail from the outside world. Some may have been deliberately allowed to penetrate. Of these was the tale of Monmouth's execution. It created profoundest dismay among those men who were suffering for the Duke and for the religious cause he had professed to champion. Many refused utterly to believe it. A wild story began to circulate that a man resembling Monmouth had offered himself up in the Duke's stead, and that Monmouth survived to come again in glory, to deliver Zion and make war upon Babylon. Mr. Blood heard that tale with the same indifference with which he had received the news of Monmouth's death. But one shameful thing he heard in connection with this which left him not quite so unmoved and served to nourish the contempt he was forming for King James. His majesty had consented to see Monmouth, to have done so unless he intended to pardon him was a thing execrable and beyond belief for the only other object in granting that interview could be the evil mean satisfaction of spurning the abject penitence of his unfortunate nephew. Later they heard that Lord Gray, who after the Duke, indeed perhaps before him, was the main leader of the Rebellion, had purchased his own pardon for forty thousand pounds. Peter Blood found this of a peace with the rest. His contempt for King James blazed out at last. Why? Here's a filthy mean creature to sit on a throne. If I had known as much of him before, as I know today, I don't doubt I should have given cause to be where I am now. And then, on a sudden thought, and where will Lord Godoy be, do you suppose? He asked. Young Pit, whom he addressed, turned toward him a face from which the ruddy tan of the sea had faded almost completely during those months of captivity. His gray eyes were round and questioning. Blood answered him. I'm sure now we've never seen his lordship since that day at Ogathorps. And where are the other gentry that were taken? The real leaders of this plaguey rebellion. Gray's case explains their absence, I think. They are wealthy men that can ransom themselves. Here, awaiting the gallows, are none but the unfortunates who followed. Those who had the honor to lead them go free. It's a curious and instructive reversal of the usual way of these things. Faith. It's an uncertain world entirely. He laughed and settled down into that spirit of scorn, wrapped in which he stepped later into the great hall of Taunton Castle to take his trial. With him went Pit and the Yeoman Bains. The three of them were to be tried together, and their case was to open the proceedings of that ghastly day. The hall, even to the galleries, thronged with spectators, most of whom were ladies, was hung in scarlet, a pleasant conceit, this of the lord chief justices, who, naturally enough, preferred the color that should reflect his own bloody mind. At the upper end, on a raised dais, sat the lord's commissioners, the five judges in their scarlet robes and heavy, dark para-wigs, barren jefferies of whim enthroned in the middle place. The prisoners filed in under guard. The crier called for silence under pain of imprisonment, and, as the hum of voices gradually became hushed, Mr. Bled considered with interest the twelve good men and true that composed the jury. Neither good nor true did they look. They were scared, uneasy, and hang-dog as any set of thieves caught with their hands in the pockets of their neighbors. They were twelve shaken men, each of whom stood between the sword of the lord chief justices' recent bloodthirsty charge and the wall of his own conscience. From then Mr. Bled's calm, deliberate gaze passed on to consider the lord's commissioners, and particularly the presiding judge that lord jefferies, whose terrible fang had come ahead of him from Dorchester. He beheld a tall, slight man on the young side of forty, with an oval face that was delicately beautiful. There were dark stains of suffering or sleeplessness under the low-lidded eyes, heightening their brilliance and their gentle melancholy. The face was very pale, save for the vivid color of the full lips and the hectic flush on the rather high but inconspicuous cheekbones. It was something in those lips that marred the perfection of that countenance, a fault elusive but undeniable, lurked there to belie the fine sensitiveness of those nostrils, the tenderness of those dark liquid eyes, and the noble calm of that pale brow. The physician in Mr. Bled regarded the man with peculiar interest, knowing, as he did, the agonizing malady from which his lordship suffered and the amazingly irregular, debauched life that he led in spite of it. Perhaps because of it. Peter Bled, hold up your hand. Abruptly he was recalled to his position by the harsh voice of the clerk of Arraines. His obedience was mechanical, and the clerk droned out the wordy indictment which pronounced Peter Bled, a false traitor against the most illustrious and most excellent Prince James II by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland king, his supreme and natural lord. It informed him that having no fear of God in his heart, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, he had failed in the love and true and due natural obedience towards his said lord the king, and had moved to disturb the peace and tranquility of the kingdom and to stir up war and rebellion to depose his said lord the king from the title, honor, and the regal name of the imperial crown, and much more of the same kind, at the end of which he was invited to say whether he was guilty or not guilty. He answered more than was asked. It's entirely innocent I am. A small, sharp-faced man at a table before and to the right of him bounced up. It was Mr. Polifax and the judge advocate. Are you guilty or not guilty? snapped this peppery gentleman. You must take the words. Words, is it? said Peter Bled. Oh, not guilty. And he went on, addressing himself to the bench, on this same subject of words, may it please your lordships, I am guilty of nothing to justify any of those words I have heard used to describe me, unless it be a want of patience at having been closely confined for two months and longer, in a fetid jail with great peril to my health and even life. Being started he would have added a deal more, but at this point the lord chief justice interposed in a gentle rather plaintive voice. Look you, sir, because we must observe the common and usual methods of trial, I must interrupt you now. You are no doubt ignorant of the forms of law. Not only ignorant, my lord, but hitherto most happy in that ignorance I could gladly have foregone this acquaintance with them. A pale smile momentarily lightened the wistful countenance. I believe you. You shall be fully heard when you come to your defence, but anything you say now is altogether irregular and improper. Inheartened by that apparent sympathy and consideration, Mr. Bled answered thereafter, as was required of him, that he would be tried by God in his country, whereupon having prayed to God to send him a good deliverance, the clerk called upon Andrew Baines to hold up his hand and plead. From Baines, who pleaded not guilty, the clerk passed on to Pitt, who boldly owned his guilt. The lord chief justice stirred at that. Come, that's better, quote he and his four scarlet brethren nodded. If all were as obstinate as his two fellow rebels, there would never be an end. After that ominous interpolation, delivered with an inhuman iciness that sent a shiver through the court, Mr. Plexven got to his feet. With great prolixity he stated the general case against the three men, and the particular case against Peter Blood, whose indictment was to be taken first. The only witness called for the king was Captain Hobart. He testified briskly to the manner in which he had found and taken the three prisoners, together with the lord Gildoy. Upon the orders of his colonel, he would have hanged Pitt out of hand, but was restrained by the lies of the prisoner Blood, who led him to believe that Pitt was a peer of the realm and a person of consideration. As the captain's evidence concluded, Lord Geoffrey's looked across at Peter Blood. Will the prisoner Blood ask the witness any questions? None, my lord. He has correctly related what occurred. I am glad to have your admission of that without any of the preferrications that are usual in your kind. And I will say this, that here, prevarication would avail you little, for we always have the truth in the end. Be sure of that. Banes and Pitt similarly admitted the accuracy of the captain's evidence, whereupon the scarlet figure of the lord chief justice heaved a sigh of relief. This being so, let us get on in God's name for we have much to do. There was now no trace of gentleness in his voice. It was brisk and rasping, and the lips through which it passed were curved in scorn. I take it, Mr. Plexfin, that the wicked treason of these three rogues being established, indeed admitted by them, there is no more to be said. Peter Blood's voice rang out crisply on a note that almost seemed to contain laughter. May it please your lordship! But there's a great deal more to be said. His lordship looked at him, first in blank amazement at his audacity, then gradually with an expression of dull anger. The scarlet lips fell into unpleasant, cruel lines that transfigured the whole countenance. How now, rogue, would you waste our time with idle subterfuge? I would have your lordship and the gentlemen of the jury hear me on my defense as your lordship promised that I should be heard. Why? So you shall, villain, so you shall. His lordship's voice was harsh as a file. He writhed as he spoke, and for an instant his features were distorted. A delicate, dead, white hand on which the veins showed blue brought forth a handkerchief with which he dabbed his lips and then his brow. Observing him with his physician's eye, Peter Blood judged him a prey to the pain of the disease that was destroying him. So you shall, but after the admission made, what defense remains? You shall judge my lord. That is the purpose for which I sit here. And so shall you, gentlemen. Blood looked from judge to jury. The latter shifted uncomfortably under the confident flash of his blue eyes. Lord Jeffrey's bullying charge had whipped the spirit out of them. Had they themselves been prisoners, accused of treason, he could not have arraigned them more ferociously. Peter Blood stood boldly forward, erect, self-possessed, and saccharine. He was freshly shaven, and his periwig, if out of curl, was at least carefully combed and dressed. Captain Hobart has testified to what he knows that he found me at Oglethorpe's farm on the Monday morning, after the battle at Weston. But he has not told you what I did there. Again the judge broke him. Why, what should you have been doing there in the company of rebels? Two of them, the Lord Gildoy and your fellow there, have already admitted their guilt. This is what I beg leave to tell your lordship, and in God's name be brief, man, for if I am to be troubled with the say of all you traitor dogs, I may sit here until the spring the sizes. I was there, my lord, in my quality as a physician, to dress Lord Gildoy's wounds. What's this? Do you tell us that you are a physician? A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. Good God! cried Lord Jeffries, his voice suddenly swelling his eyes upon the jury. What an impudent rogue is this! You heard the witness say that he had known him in Tangiers some years ago, and that he was then an officer in the French service. You heard the prisoner admit that the witness had spoken the truth. Why, so he had. Yet what I am telling you is also true. So it is. For some years I was a soldier, but before that I was a physician. And I have been one again since January last, established in Bridgewater, as I can bring a hundred witnesses to prove. There is not the need to waste our time with that. I will convict you out of your own rascally mouth. I will ask you only this. How came you, who represent yourself as a physician, peacefully following your calling in the town of Bridgewater, to be with the army of the Duke of Monmouth? I was never with that army. No witness has sworn to that, and I dareswear that no witness will. I never was attracted to the late rebellion. I regarded the adventure as a wicked madness. Why, take leave to ask your lordship, his brogue became more marked than ever, what should I, who was born and bred a papist, be doing in the army of the Protestant champion? A papist, though, the judge gloomed on him a moment. Art more like a sniveling, canteen jack presbyter. I tell you, man, I can smell a presbyterian forty miles. Then I'll take leave to marvel that, with so keen a nose, your lordship can't smell a papist at four paces. There was a ripple of laughter in the galleries, instantly quelled by the fierce glare of the judge and the voice of the crier. Lord Jeffries leaned farther forward upon his desk. He raised that delicate white hand, still clutching its handkerchief, and sprouting from a froth of lace. Well, we'll leave your religion out of account for the moment. Friend, he said, but mark what I say to you. With a minatory forefinger, he beat the time of his words. Know, friend, that there is no religion a man can pretend to, can give a countenance to lying. Thou hast a precious immortal soul, and there is nothing in the world equal to its value. Consider that the great God of heaven and earth, before whose tribunal thou, and we and all persons, are to stand at the last day, will take vengeance on thee for every falsehood, and justly strike thee into eternal flames. Make thee drop into the bottomless pit of fire and brimstone. If thou offer to deviate the least from the truth. And nothing but the truth. For I tell thee, God is not mocked. On that I charge you to answer truthfully. How came you to be taken with these rebels? Peter Blood gaped at him a moment in consternation. The man was incredible, unreal, fantastic, a nightmare judge. Then he collected himself to answer. I was summoned that morning to succour Lord Gildoy, and I conceived it to be the duty imposed upon me by my calling to answer that summons. Did you so, the judge now, terrible of aspect? His face white, his twisted lips red as the blood for which they thirsted, glared upon him in evil mockery. Then he controlled himself as if by an effort. He sighed. He resumed his earlier gentle plaintiveness. Lord, how you waste our time. But I'll have patience with you. Who summoned you? Master Pitt there, as he will testify. Oh, Master Pitt will testify. He that is himself, a traitor, self-confessed. Is that your witness? There is also Master Baines here who can answer to it. Good Master Baines will have to answer for himself. And I doubt not. He'll be greatly exercised to save his own neck from a halter. Come, come, sir. Are these your only witnesses? I could bring others from Bridgewater who saw me set out that morning upon the cropper of Master Pitt's horse. His lordship smiled. It will not be necessary. For, mark me, I do not intend to waste more time on you. Answer me only this. When Master Pitt, as you pretend, came to summon you, did you know that he had been, as you have heard him confess, of Monmouth's following? I did, my lord. You did. His lordship looked at the cringing jury and uttered a short, stabbing laugh. Yet, in spite of that, you went with him to sucker a wounded man as was my sacred duty. Thy sacred duty, sayst thou? Fury blazed out of him again. Good, God, what a generation of vipers do we live in. Thy sacred duty, rogue, is to thy king and to God. But let it pass. Did he tell you whom it was that you were desired to sucker? Lord Gildoy, yes. And you knew that Lord Gildoy had been wounded in the battle. And on what side he fought? I knew. And yet, being, as you would have us believe, a true and loyal subject of our lord, the king, you went to sucker him. Peter Bled lost patience for a moment. My business, my lord, was with his wounds, not with his politics. He was a farmer from the galleries, and even from the jury approved him. It served only to drive his terrible judge into a deeper fury. Jesus, God, was there ever such an impudent villain in the world as thou? He swung white-faced to the jury. I hope, gentlemen of the jury, you take notice of the horrible carriage of this traitor rogue, with all you cannot but observe the spirit of this sort of people. What a villainous and devilish one it is, out of his own mouth. He has said enough to hang him a dozen times. Yet, is there more? Answer me this, sir. When you cousin Captain Hobart with your lies concerning the station of this other traitor pit, what business, then, to save him from being hanged without trial, as was threatened? What concern was it of yours whether or not the wretch was hanged? Justice is the concern of every loyal subject, for an injustice committed by one who holds the king's commission is in some sense a dishonor to the king's majesty. It was a shrewd, sharp thrust aimed at the jury, and it reveals, I think, the alertness of the man's mind, his self-possession ever steadiest in moments of dire peril. With any other jury it must have made the impression that he hoped to make. It may even have made its impression upon these poor, pusillanimous sheep. But the dread judge was there to efface it. He gasped aloud, then flung himself violently forward. Ha! Lord of heaven, he stormed, was there ever such a canting impudent rascal, but I have done with you I see thee, villain, I see thee already with a halter around thy neck. Having spoken so, gloatingly, evilly, he sank back again and composed himself. It was as if a curtain fell. All emotion passed again from his pale face. Back to invest it again came that gentle melancholy. Speaking after a moment's pause his voice was soft, almost tender, yet every word of it carried sharply through that hushed court. If I know my own heart it is not in my nature to desire the hurt of anybody, but much less to delight in their eternal perdition. It is out of compassion for you that I've used all these words because I would have you have some regard for your immortal soul and not ensure its damnation by obdurately persisting in falsehood and prevarication. But I see that all the pains in the world and all compassion and charity are lost upon you, and therefore I will say no more to you. He turned again to the jury that countenance of wistful beauty. Gentlemen, I must tell you for law, of which we are the judges and not you, that if any person be in actual rebellion against the king and another person who really and actually was not in rebellion does knowingly receive harbor, comfort, or succor him such a person is as much a trader as he who indeed bore arms. We are bound by our oaths and consciences to declare to you what is law, and you are bound by your oaths and your consciences to deliver and to declare to us by your verdict the truth of the facts. Upon that he proceeded to his summing up, showing how veins and blood were both guilty of treason, the first for having harbored a trader, the second for having suckered that trader by dressing his wounds. He interlarded his address by sycophantic allusions to his natural lord and lawful sovereign, the king, whom God had set over them and with vicarations of nonconformity and of man-mouth of whom, in his own words, he dared boldly affirm that the meanest subject within the kingdom that was of legitimate birth had a better title to the crown. Jesus God, that ever we should have such a generation of vipers among us, he burst out in rhetorical frenzy, and then he sank back as if exhausted by the violence he had used. A moment he was still dabbing his lips again, then he moved uneasily, once more his features were twisted by pain, and in a few snarling, almost incoherent words, he dismissed the jury to consider the verdict. Peter Blood had listened to the intemperate, the blasphemous, and almost obscene invective of that tirade with the detachment that afterwards, in retrospect, surprised him. He was so amazed by the man, by the reactions taking place in him between mind and body, and by his methods of bullying in coercing the jury into bloodshed, that he almost forgot that his own life was at stake. The absence of that dazed jury was a brief one. The verdict found the three prisoners guilty. Peter Blood looked around the scarlet-hung court for an instant that foam of white faces seemed to heave before him. Then he was himself again, and a voice was asking him what he had to say for himself why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, being convicted of high treason. He laughed, and his laugh jarred uncannily upon the deathly stillness of the court. It was also grotesque, such a mockery of justice administered by that wistful-eyed jack-putting in scarlet, who was himself a mockery, the venal instrument of a brutally spiteful and vindictive king. His laughter shocked the austerity of that same jack-putting. Do you laugh, sirrah, with a rope about your neck upon the very threshold of that eternity? You are so suddenly to enter into. And then Blood took his revenge. Faith, it's in better case I am for mirth than your lordship, for I have this to say before you deliver judgment. Your lordship sees me, an innocent man whose only offense is that I practiced charity with a halter around my neck. Your lordship, being the justiciar, speaks with knowledge of what is to come to me. I, being a physician, may speak with knowledge of what is to come to your lordship. And I tell you that I would not now change places with you, that I would not exchange this halter that you fling about my neck for the stone that you carry in your body. The death to which you may do me is a light pleasantry by contrast with the death to which your lordship has been doomed. By that great judge with whose name your lordship makes so free. The lord chief justice sat stiffly upright, his face ashen, his lips twitching, and whilst you might have counted ten, there was no sound in that paralyzed court after Peterblood had finished speaking. All those who knew, Lord Jefferies, regarded this as the lull before the storm, embraced themselves for the explosion. But none came. Slowly, faintly, the color crept back into that ashen face, the scarlet figure lost its rigidity and bent forward. His lordship began to speak in a muted voice and, briefly, much more briefly than was his want on such occasions and in a manner entirely mechanical, the manner of a man whose thoughts are elsewhere while his lips are speaking. He delivered sentence of death in the prescribed form and without the least allusion to what Peterblood had said. Having delivered it, he sank back exhausted. His eyes half closed, his brow aglean with sweat. The prisoners filed out. Mr. Plexven, a wig at heart, despite the position of judge advocate which he occupied, was overheard by one of the jurors to mutter in the ear of a brother-counsel, on my soul. That swarthy rascal has given his lordship a scare. It's a pity he must hang, for a man who can frighten Jefferies should go far. End of Chapter 3 Read by Dennis Sayers. Summer of 2005 for LibriVox in Modesto, California. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Captain Blood, Chapter 4 Human Merchandise Mr. Plexven was at one in the same time right and wrong, a condition much more common than is generally supposed. He was right in his indifferently expressed thought that a man whose mean and words could daunt such a lord of terror as Jefferies should by the dominance of his nature be able to fashion himself a considerable destiny. He was wrong, though justifiably so, in his assumption that Peter Blood must hang. I have said that the tribulations with which he was visited as a result of his errand of mercy to Oglethorpe's farm contained, although as yet he did not perceive it perhaps, two sources of thankfulness, one that he was tried at all, and that this trial took place on the 19th of September. Until the 18th, the sentences passed by the court of the Lord's commissioners had been carried out literally and expeditiously. But on the morning of the 19th, there arrived at Taunton a courier from Lord Sunderland, the Secretary of State. With a letter for Lord Jefferies wherein he was informed that his Majesty had been graciously pleased to command that 1,100 rebels should be furnished for transportation to some of his Majesty's southern plantations, Jamaica, Barbados, or any of the Lured Islands. You are not to suppose that this command was dictated by any sense of mercy. Lord Churchill was no more than just when he spoke of the King's heart as being as insensible as marble. It had been realized that in these wholesale hangings there was taking place a reckless waste of valuable material. Slaves were urgently required in the plantations, and a healthy, vigorous man could be reckoned worth at least from ten to fifteen pounds. Then there were at court many gentlemen who had some claim or other upon his Majesty's bounty. Here was a cheap and ready way to discharge these claims. From amongst the convicted rebels a certain number might be set aside to be bestowed upon those gentlemen so that they might dispose of them to their own profit. My Lord Sunderland's letter gives precise details of the royal munificence in human flesh. A thousand prisoners were to be distributed among some eight courtiers and others, whilst a post-scriptum to his Lordship's letter asked for a further hundred to be held at the disposal of the Queen. These prisoners were to be transported at once to His Majesty's southern plantations and to be kept there for the space of ten years before being restored to liberty. The parties to whom they were assigned entering into security to see that transportation was immediately affected. We know from Lord Geoffrey's secretary how the Chief Justice invaded that night in drunken frenzy against this misplaced clemency to which His Majesty had been persuaded. We know how he attempted by letter to induce the King to reconsider his decision, but James adhered to it. It was, apart from the indirect profit he derived from it, a clemency full worthy of him. He knew that to spare lives in this fashion was to convert them into living deaths. Many must succumb in torment to the horrors of West Indian slavery, and so be the envy of their surviving companions. Thus it happened that Peter Bled and with him Jeremy Pitt and Andrew Baines, instead of being hanged, drawn and quartered as their sentences directed, were conveyed to Bristol and their shipped with some fifty others aboard the Jamaica merchant. From close confinement under hatches, ill nourishment and foul water, a sickness broke out amongst them, of which eleven died. Amongst these was the unfortunate Yeoman from Oaklethorpe's farm, brutally torn from his quiet homestead amid the fragrant cider orchards for no other sin but that he had practiced mercy. The mortality might have been higher than it was but for Peter Bled. At first the master of the Jamaica merchant had answered with oaths and threats the doctor's expostulations against permitting men to perish in this fashion, and his insistence that he should be made free of the medicine chest, and given leave to minister to the sick. But presently Captain Gardner came to see that he might be brought to task the losses of human merchandise, and because of this he was belatedly glad to avail himself of the skill of Peter Bled. The doctor went to work zealously and zestfully, and wrought so ably that by his administrations and by improving the condition of his fellow captives he checked the spread of the disease. Towards the middle of December the Jamaica merchant dropped anchor in Carlisle Bay and put ashore the forty-two surviving rebels convict. If these unfortunate had imagined any of them appear to have done, that they were coming into some wild, savage country, the prospect of which they had a glimpse before they were hustled over the ship's side into the waiting boats, was enough to correct the impression. They beheld a town of sufficiently imposing proportions composed of houses built upon European notions of architecture, but without any of the huddle usual in European cities. The spire of a church rose dominantly above the red roofs. A fort guarded the entrance of the wide harbor, with guns thrusting their muzzles between the crannels, and the wide façade of government house revealed itself dominantly placed on a gentle hill above the town. This hill was vividly green as in an English hill in April, and the day was such a day as April gives to England the season of heavy rains being newly ended. On a wide cobbled space on the seafront they found a guard of rebel-coated militia drawn up to receive them, and a crowd attracted by their arrival, which in dress and manner differed little from a crowd in a seaport at home, save that it contained fewer women and a great number of negroes. To inspect them, drawn up there on the mole, came Governor Steed, a short, stout, red-faced gentleman in blue taffetas burdened by a prodigious amount of gold lace, who limped a little and leaned heavily upon a stout ebony cane. After him, in the uniform of a colonel of the Barbados militia, rolled a tall, corpulent man who towered head and shoulders above the governor, with malevolence plainly written on his enormous yellowish countenance. At his side, and contrasting oddly with his grossness, moving with an easy stripling grace, came a slight young lady in a modish riding gown. The broad brim of grey hat with scarlet sweep of ostrich plume shaded an oval face upon which the climate of the tropic of cancer had made no impression. So delicately fair was its complexion. Ringlets of red-brown hair hung to her shoulders. Frightness looked out from her haze eyes, which were set wide. Commissuration repressed now the mischievousness that normally inhabited her fresh young mouth. Peter Blood caught himself staring in a sort of amazement at that pecan face, which seemed here so out of place, and finding his stare returned, he shifted uncomfortably. He grew conscious of the sorry figure that he cut, unwashed with rank and matted hair and a disfiguring black beard upon his face, and the erstwhile splendid suit of black camelot in which he had been taken prisoner now reduced to rags that would have disgraced a scarecrow, he was in no case for inspection by such dainty eyes as these. Nevertheless, they continued to inspect him with round-eyed, almost childlike wonder and pity. Their owner put forth a hand to touch the scarlet sleeve of her companion, whereupon with an ill-tempered grunt the man swung his great bulk round so kindly confronted her. Looking up into his face, she was speaking to him earnestly, but the colonel plainly gave her no more than the half of his attention. His little beady eyes, closely flanking a fleshly pendulous nose, had passed from her and were fixed upon fair-haired, sturdy young pit, who was standing beside Blood. The governor had also come to a halt, and for a moment now that little group of threes stood in conversation. What the lady said, Peter could not hear at all, for she lowered her voice. The colonels reached him in a confused rumble, but the governor was neither considerate nor indistinct. He had a high-pitched voice which carried far, and believing himself witty, he desired to be heard by all. But, my dear Colonel Bishop, it is for you to take first choice from this dainty nose-gay and at your own price. After that we'll send the rest to auction. Colonel Bishop nodded his acknowledgement. He raised his voice in answering, Your Excellency is very good, but faith there are a weedy lot, not likely to be of much value in the plantation. His beady eyes scanned them again, and his contempt of them deepened the malevolence of his face. It was as if he were annoyed with them for being in no better condition. Then he beckoned forward Captain Gardner, the master of the Jamaica Merchant, and for some minutes stood in talk with him over a list which the latter produced at his request. Presently he waved aside the list and advanced alone towards the rebels convict, his eyes considering them, his lips pursed. Before the young summercetcher shipmaster he came to a halt, and stood an instant pondering him. Then he fingered the muscles of the young man's arm, and bade him open his mouth that he might see his teeth. He pursed his coarse lips again and nodded. He spoke to Gardner over his shoulder. Fifteen pounds for this one. The Captain made a face of dismay. Fifteen pounds? It isn't half what I meant to ask for him. It is double what I had meant to give, grunted the Colonel. But he would be cheap at thirty pounds, your honour. I can get a negro for that. These white swine don't live. They're not fit for the labour. Gardner broke into protestations of Pitt's health, youth, and vigor. It was not a man he was discussing. It was a beast of burden. Pitt, a sensitive lad, stood mute and unmoving. Only the ebb and flow of colour in his cheeks showed the inward struggle by which he maintained his self-control. Peter Blood was nauseated by the loathsome haggle. In the background, moving slowly away down the line of prisoners, went the lady in conversation with the Governor, who smirked and preened himself as he limped beside her. She was unconscious of the loathly business the Colonel was transacting. Was she, wondered Blood, indifferent to it? Colonel Bishop swung on his heel to pass on. I'll go as far as twenty pounds, not a penny more, and it's twice as much as you were likely to get from Crabston. Captain Gardner, recognising the finality of the tone, sighed and yielded. Already Bishop was moving down the line. For Mr. Blood, as for a weedy youth on his left, the Colonel had no more than a glance of contempt. But the next man, a middle-aged colossus named Wolverston, who had lost an eye at Sedgemore, drew his regard, and the haggling was recommenced. Peter Blood stood there in the brilliant sunshine and inhaled the fragrant air, which was unlike any air that he had ever breathed. It was laden with a strange perfume, blend of logwood flower, pimento and aromatic cedars. He lost himself in unprofitable speculations born of that singular fragrance. He was in no mood for conversation, nor was pit, who stood dumbly at his side, who was afflicted mainly at the moment by the thought that he was at last about to be separated from this man with whom he had stood shoulder to shoulder throughout all these troubleous months, and whom he had come to love and depend upon for guidance and sustenance. A sense of loneliness and misery pervaded him by contrast with which all that he had endured seemed as nothing. To pit this separation was the poignant climax of all his sufferings. Other buyers came and stared at them and passed on. Blood did not heed them, and then at the end of the line there was a movement. Gardner was speaking in a loud voice, making an announcement to the general public of buyers that had waited until Colonel Bishop had taken his choice of that human merchandise. As he finished, Blood, looking in his direction, noticed that the girl was speaking to Bishop and pointing up the line with a silver-hilted writing-whip she carried. Bishop shaded his eyes with his hand to look in the direction in which she was pointing. Then, slowly, with his ponderous rolling gait, he approached again accompanied by Gardner, and followed by the Lady and the Governor. On they came until the Colonel was a breast of Blood. He would have passed on, but that the Lady tapped his arm with her whip. But this is the man I meant, she said. This one contempt rang in the voice. Peter Blood found himself staring into a pair of beady brown eyes sunk into a yellow fleshly face of currents into a dumpling. He felt the colour creeping into his face under the insult of that contemptuous inspection. Baw! A bag of bones! What should I do with him? He was turning away when Gardner interposed. He may be lean, but he's tough, tough and healthy. When half of them was sick and the other half sickening, this rogue kept his legs and doctored his fellows. But for him there'd been more deaths than there was. Fifteen pounds for him, Colonel. That's cheap enough. He's tough, I tell your honour, tough and strong, though he be lean. And he's just the man to bear the heat when it comes. The climate'll never kill him. There came a chuckle from Governor Steed. Ha! You here, Colonel. Trust your niece. Her sex knows a man when it sees one. And he laughed, well pleased with his wit. But he laughed alone. A cloud of annoyance swept across the face of the Colonel's thoughts. The Colonel himself was too absorbed in the consideration of this bargain to heed the Governor's humour. He twisted his lip a little, stroking his chin with his hand the while. Jeremy Pitt had almost ceased to breathe. I'll give you ten pounds for him, said the Colonel at last. Peter Blood prayed that the offer might be rejected. For no reason that he could have given you, he was taken with repugnance at the thought of becoming the property of this gross man. Some sort the property of that hazel-eyed young girl. But it would need more than repugnance to save him from his destiny. A slave is a slave, and has no power to shape his fate. Peter Blood was sold to Colonel Bishop, a disdainful buyer for the ignominious sum of ten pounds. End of Chapter Four Read by Sandra in Wales, United Kingdom. June 2006