Captain Blood

hwest of the city. She was attended by two negroes who trotted after her at a respectful distance, and her destination was Government House, whither she went to visit the Governor's lad

e rare enough in the island. And yet in som

sion of his dress. It was sober enough, but hardly gentlemanly. Coat and breeches were of plain homespun; and if the former sat so well upon him it was more by virtue of his natural grace than by that of tailoring. His stockings were of cotton, hars

t were startlingly blue considered her gravely. The

now you, sir

which disdained the artifices of her sex, and set her on good terms with all the world. To this it may be due that Miss Arabella had reached the age of five and twenty not me

r, and they squatted now upon the short grass unti

to a standstill up

know her own pr

prop

worth precisely ten pounds. I know it because that is the sum your uncle paid for

should not instantly have known him again despite the interest he had then aroused in her is not surp

d she. "And y

dmitted. "But then, I have

rd of that,

om the ministrations of either of the two physicians practising in Bridgetown. Then the Governor's lady had desired him to attend her for the megrims. Mr. Blood had found her suffering from nothing worse than peevishness-the result of a natural petulance aggravated by the dulness of life in Barbados to a lady of her social aspirations. But he had prescribed for

ratively easy and clean condition," said Mr. Blood,

wondered, and looked at him with the searching frankness that another might

of my shining abilities might never have been brought to light, and I should be

me for that? It was my

ou not urged him. I perceived your i

here was a challenge

life; but to be bought and sold was a new one, a

." There was a slight severity in her tone, as if to reprove the m

It is the life, I suppose. But there are others here who are worse. There is Mr. Crabston, for instance, up at Speightstown. He

little be

n changed the direction of his probe. "But the

seem quite li

not,"

idling a little. "You have

not the wit to see that England requires purifying. I was content to pursue a doctor's trade in Bridge

him. "I think you a

m not obscu

who would have you flo

llow it. He has the gout, a

on that?" She was

had the gout; probably not

looked away from him a moment, out to sea. Quite sudde

not a rebel, how

ed, and he laughed. "Faith, no

that you would pr

that he t

nfamy!" she cried,

s no need to commiserate me further. All things considered

lbay to the limitless ocean ruffled by the winds of heaven. Then, as if the fair prospect rend

sewhere?" she asked him,

make

e earthly mirror of heaven," she confessed. "But no doubt you know your world better than I." She touch

. Her negroes sprang up, a

nning the sunlit waters of Carlisle Bay below, and the shipping in

n announcing that he preferred it to England, he had indulged that almo

le huddle of huts built of mud and wattles-a miniature village enclosed in a stockad

nd sang the li

s do not a

n bars

he was to realize it increasingly as time sped on. Daily he came to think more of his clipped wings, of his exclusion from the world, and less of the fortuitous liberty he enjoyed. Nor did the contrasting of his comparatively easy lo

sunrise to sunset, and if their labours flagged, there were the whips of the overseer and his men to quicken them. They went in rags, some almost naked; they dwelt in squalor, and they were ill-nourished on salted meat and maize dumplings-food which to many of them was for a season at least so nauseating that two of them sickened and died before Bishop remembered that their lives had a certain value in labour to him and yielded to Blood's intercessions for a better car

the remainder. The most mutinous were quelled, and accepte

is place where man defiled so foully the lovely work of his Creator. It was a longing too vague to amount to a hope. Hope here was inadmissible. And yet he did not yield to despair. He set a mask of laugh

without harshness even by the soulless planter to whom he had been sold. He owed it all to gout and megrims. He had won the esteem o

y, boyish ways and pleasant, boyish voice. In all his life-and it had been very varied-he had never met a man whom he accounted more beastly than her uncle, and he could not dissociate her from the man. She was his niece, of his own blood, and some of the vices of it, some of the remors

had given himself up to the life of a planter. He had prospered from the first, as men sometimes will who care nothing for prosperity. Prospering, he had bethought him of his younger brother, a soldier at home reputed somewhat wild. He had advised him to come out to Barbados; and the advice, which at another season William Bishop might have scorned, reached him at a moment when his wildness was beginning to bear such fruit that a change of climate was desirable. William came, and was admitted by his generous brother to a partnership in the prosperous plantation. Some six years later, when Arabella was fifteen, her father died, leaving her in her uncle's guardianship. It was perhaps

are all too prone to judge-

od. She had been in action off Martinique with two Spanish treasure ships, and although her captain swore that the Spaniards had beset him without provocation, it is difficult to avoid a suspicion that the encounter had been brought about quite otherwise. One of the Spaniards had fled from the combat, and if the Pride of Devon had not given chase it was probably because sh

egarding any evidence that might belie it. He shared the hatred so richly deserved by arrogant, overbearing Spain that was common to men of every other natio

y from the Spanish galleon that had invaded the English ship and found itself unable to retreat. These wounded men were conveyed to a long shed on the wharf, and the medical skill of Bridgetown was summoned to their aid. Peter Bloo

sly, and even with a certain superficial friendliness towards each of his patients. These were so surprised at having their wounds healed instead of being summarily hanged that they manifested a docility very unusual in their kind. They were shunned, however, by all those charitably disposed inhabitants of Bri

the act of setting a broken leg, when a deep, gruff voice, that he had come to know

you doin

task. There was not the need. H

eg," he answered, withou

arfully out of a clay-coloured face at this intruder. A knowledge of English was unnecessary to inform him that here came an enemy. The harsh, minatory

man is wounded. It is not for me t

ou'd done that, you w

t is because I did

en, observing Blood to continue his work unmoved, he grew really

instant. "The man is in pain," he

damned piratical dog. But will yo

nce expressing itself in the most unruffled disregard of himself. His long bamboo cane was raised

I may be. I am acting upon the e

is great face empurpli

nd, and without another word to Blood rolled away towards the ot

d less by humanitarian considerations than by the

n Steed and Bishop. The Colonel was blustering and storming, the great bulk of him towering above the wizened little overdressed figure of the Governor. But the little fop was not to be browbeaten. His excellency was conscious that he had behind him the force of public opinion to supp

deal to be said. He said it, with great circumstance, loudly, vehem

ide a wound that was to smart resentfully for many a week. At the moment it struck him

daughters of her planters and merchants, paid their first visit o

this Peter Blood accounted natural enough. But rising suddenly from the re-dressing of a wound, a task in which he had been absorbed for some moments, he saw to his surprise that one lady, detached from the general throng,

ow, and holding a bloody rag in his hand, stood at gaze a moment. The lady, turning

corrects a misapprehension, and also tinged never so f

m withered on her lips. She frowned and stare

e's a human being non

s implied rebuke, t

d he, when he had recovered. "He regards them as vermin t

re plainly in his voice. Sh

you tell

el's displeasure. If he had had his way, I shoul

ncle's mind?" There was a crispness about her voice

should bestow gifts on them, considering that if your uncle came to hear of it....

was not sat

would not willingly be rude to a lady even in his thoughts, it's none so bad.

him, for the first time, and

p could have an angel for his niece?" said he recklessly,

ed now the fruits and delicacies with which it was laden, and piled them in such heaps upon the beds of the six Spaniards that by the time she had so served the last of them her basket was

ut another word or so much as another glance at Peter Blood, sw

departure. Then

only since he had been vouchsafed this revelation of her true nature. "Bad cess to it now, it serves me right. It seems I know nothing at all