Captain Blood quotes

He closed the window, drew the curtains, and turned to the pleasant, candle-lighted room, and the table on 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 favour 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.

“Take your time, now,” said Mr. Blood. “

I never knew speed made by overhaste.

”

“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 harbour 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.”

“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 harbour 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.”

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.

”

“

Faith, yes. Ye’ve the look and the manners of a hangman.

But if you practise your trade on my patient here, you may be putting a rope round your own neck. He’s not the kind you may string up and no questions asked.

“

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.”

“

Then I’ll take leave to marvel that with so keen a nose your lordship can’t smell a papist at four paces.

”

Peter Blood lost patience for a moment. “

My business, my lord, was with his wounds, not with his politics.

”

“

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 dishonour to the King’s majesty.

”

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 doom 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.

”

“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 Jeffreys should go far.

”

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.

“Your uncle’s, leastways. Let me present myself. I am called Peter Blood, and I am worth precisely ten pounds.

I know it because that is the sum your uncle paid for me. It is not every man has the same opportunities of ascertaining his real value.

”

“

Oh, it’s a sweet country England under King James! There’s no need to commiserate me further.

All things considered I prefer Barbados. Here at least one can believe in God.”

It could not have been so yesterday. It became so 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 of human nature.

But how the devil was I to guess that a family that can breed a devil like Colonel Bishop should also breed a saint like this?

”

“Then, faith, you’re wrong.

I laugh only at the comic, and you are not comic at all.

”

“That’s merely a diversion, I think. By trade I am a soldier—at least, it’s a trade I followed for ten years. It brought me no great gear, but it served me better than medicine, which, as you may observe, has brought me into slavery.

I’m thinking it’s more pleasing in the sight of Heaven to kill men than to heal them. Sure it must be.

”

“

It’s hoping I am ye’re in a fit state to meet your Maker

,” said Mr. Blood, and ran him through the body. He did the thing skilfully: with the combined skill of swordsman and surgeon. The man sank in a hideous heap without so much as a groan.

“

Peter is my name; but I doubt I’ll not be the Peter you’re expecting.

”

Even when their quarters were invaded and they found themselves surrounded by a score of wild, hairy, half-naked men, who—save that they appeared once to have been white—looked like a horde of savages, the Spaniards could not believe their eyes.

Who could have dreamed that a handful of forgotten plantation-slaves would have dared to take so much upon themselves?

The half-drunken Spaniards, their laughter suddenly quenched, the song perishing on their lips, stared, stricken and bewildered at the levelled muskets by which they were checkmated.

“

Heroic, is it? Bedad, it’s epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of my genius.

”

“

As your doctor, now, I prescribe a swim to cool the excessive heat of your humours.

” Blood delivered the explanation pleasantly, and, receiving still no answer from the Colonel, continued: “It’s a mercy for you I’m not by nature as bloodthirsty as some of my friends here.

“You shall have a chance to swim for it,” Peter Blood continued. “It’s not above a quarter of a mile to the headland yonder, and with ordinary luck ye should manage it.

Faith, you’re fat enough to float.

Come on! Now, don’t be hesitating or it’s a long voyage ye’ll be going with us, and the devil knows what may happen to you. You’re not loved any more than you deserve.”

“

You flatter my Castilian accent. I have the honour to be Irish.

You were thinking that a miracle had happened. So it has—a miracle wrought by my genius, which is considerable.”

“And now,” said Captain Blood—to give him the title he had assumed—“being a humane man,

I am sorry to find that ye’re not dead from the tap we gave you. For it means that you’ll be put to the trouble of dying all over again.

”

“

By all the saints, it is always ‘tomorrow morning’ with you Spaniards; and tomorrow never comes, my friend.

”

“

Who will pray for your soul, I wonder, when that galleon comes to lie board and board with you?

”

Don Diego, with his body stretched in an arc across the cannon’s mouth, legs and arms lashed to the carriage on either side of it, eyeballs rolling in his head, glared maniacally at Captain Blood.

A man may not fear to die, and yet be appalled by the form in which death comes to him.

From frothing lips he hurled blasphemies and insults at his tormentor.

She also bore two treasure-chests containing fifty thousand pieces of eight.

Gold has at all times been considered the best of testimonies of good faith, and Blood was determined that in all respects appearances should be entirely on his side.

His followers had accounted this a supererogation of pretence. But Blood’s will in the matter had prevailed.

Hagthorpe looked at the boy.

“If I am a judge,” he said, “Don Diego died of fear.”

Don Esteban struck Hagthorpe across the face at that, and Hagthorpe would have struck back, but that Blood got between, whilst his followers seized the lad.

And so, although he might entertain no delusive hope of ever winning her for his own, of ever even seeing her again, yet the memory of her was to abide in his soul as a bittersweet, purifying influence.

The love that is never to be realized will often remain a man’s guiding ideal.

The resolve being taken, he went actively to work. Ogeron, most accommodating of governors, advanced him money for the proper equipment of his ship the Cinco Llagas, which he renamed the Arabella.

He might have said more but that Levasseur struck him across the mouth.

Levasseur, you see, cared as little as another to hear the truth about himself.

Mademoiselle suppressed a scream, as the youth staggered back under the blow. He came to rest against a bulkhead, and leaned there with bleeding lips.

Composing himself, he turned to the girl again with a deprecatory smile. But no smile answered him from her set face.

She had seen her beloved hero’s nature in curl-papers, as it were, and she found the spectacle disgusting and terrifying.

It recalled the brutal slaughter of the Dutch captain, and suddenly she realized that what her brother had just said of this man was no more than true.

“You have!” Levasseur’s mouth fell open. “You … you want the girl?”

“Why not? And I exceed you in gallantry in that I will make sacrifices to obtain her, and in honesty in that I am ready to pay for what I want.”

Levasseur stared at him foolishly agape. Behind him pressed his officers, gaping also.

“You do not take her while I live!” he cried.

“Then I’ll take her when you’re dead,” said Captain Blood

, and his own blade flashed in the sunlight. “The articles provide that any man of whatever rank concealing any part of a prize, be it of the value of no more than a peso, shall be hanged at the yardarm.

So soon as we are in case to put to sea again, we steer a course for Tortuga to take you home to your father. And pray do not consider that I have bought you, as your brother has just said.

All that I have done has been to provide the ransom necessary to bribe a gang of scoundrels to depart from obedience to the arch-scoundrel who commanded them, and so deliver you from all peril.

Count it, if you please, a friendly loan to be repaid entirely at your convenience.”

Captain Blood looked down upon her, and a smile broke on his lips, irradiating the blue eyes that looked so oddly light in that tawny face.

“Why, child,” said he, “I might find it hard to forgive you the stupidity of having thought otherwise.”

As he handed her to her feet again, he assured himself that he had behaved rather well in the affair. Then he sighed.

Next morning early he sought Captain Blood again. He found him alone in the patio, pacing to and fro, his head sunk on his breast. Cahusac mistook consideration for dejection.

Each of us carries in himself a standard by which to measure his neighbour.

“We have take’ you at your word, Captain,” he announced, between sullenness and defiance. Captain Blood paused, shoulders hunched, hands behind his back, and mildly regarded the buccaneer in silence. Cahusac explained himself.

“Of course.” The Admiral smiled. “

I had guessed it. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

”

Open the history of the past at whatsoever page you will, and there you shall find coincidence at work bringing about events that the merest chance might have averted.

Indeed, coincidence may be defined as the very tool used by Fate to shape the destinies of men and nations.

Observe it now at work in the affairs of Captain Blood and of some others.

“A commonplace!” said she. “My God! A commonplace!”

“I dare say that we are all savages under the cloak that civilization fashions for us,” said his lordship.

“But this Blood, now, was a man of considerable parts, from what else this Cahusac told me. He was a bachelor of medicine.”

But of all this it was the mockery alone that was perceived by Miss Bishop; she resented it.

“I do not number thieves and pirates among my acquaintance, Captain Blood,” said she

; whereupon his lordship exploded in excitement.

“Ah!” said Blood, and Lord Julian marvelled at the sudden haggardness of a countenance that had been so devil-may-care but a few moments since.

“I am a damned pirate, myself; and so I am merciful with my kind. Don Miguel goes free.”

Lord Julian gasped. “After what I’ve told you that he has done? After his sinking of the Royal Mary? After his treatment of me—of us?” Lord Julian protested indignantly.

Captain Blood did not hear them; he did not hear anything save the echo of those cruel words which had dubbed him thief and pirate.

It is an odd fact of human nature that a man may for years possess the knowledge that a certain thing must be of a certain fashion, and yet be shocked to discover through his own senses that the fact is in perfect harmony with his beliefs.

When first, three years ago, at Tortuga he had been urged upon the adventurer’s course which he had followed ever since, he had known in what opinion Arabella Bishop must hold him if he succumbed.

Not so, however, reasoned Captain Blood. Indeed, that night he reasoned not at all. His soul was given up to conflict between the almost sacred love he had borne her in all these years and the evil passion which she had now awakened in him.

Extremes touch, and in touching may for a space become confused, indistinguishable.

And the extremes of love and hate were tonight so confused in the soul of Captain Blood that in their fusion they made up a monstrous passion.

She had no charity for him, no mercy. She had summed him up, convicted him and sentenced him in that one phrase. He was thief and pirate in her eyes; nothing more, nothing less. What, then, was she?

What are those who have no charity? he asked the stars.

Well, as she had shaped him hitherto, so let her shape him now. Thief and pirate she had branded him. She should be justified. Thief and pirate should he prove henceforth; no more nor less;

“I usually call things by their names.”

“Do you? Stab me! I shouldn’t boast of it. It argues either extreme youth or extreme foolishness.”

His lordship, you see, belonged to my Lord Sunderland’s school of philosophy. He added after a moment: “So does the display of ingratitude.”

He saw the sudden scarlet flame upon her cheeks, the heavy frown that descended upon her brow. He had made her very angry, he judged. But there was no explosion. She recovered.

“Hate him? Lord! What a thought! I don’t regard the fellow at all.”

“Then ye should, ma’am.” His lordship spoke his thought frankly. “He’s worth regarding. He’d be an acquisition to the King’s navy—a man that can do the things he did this morning. His service under de Ruyter wasn’t wasted on him.

Lord Julian was sententious, as I gather that he often was.

“Life can be infernally complex,” he sighed.

“England’s,” she corrected him in reproof. “

The country is all, sir; the sovereign naught. King James will pass; others will come and pass; England remains, to be honourably served by her sons, whatever rancour they may hold against the man who rules her in their time.

”

James’s, Lord Julian Wade, to whom her every moment was devoted. And what chance had he, a desperate adventurer with a record of outlawry, against such a rival as that, a man of parts, moreover, as he was bound to admit?

You conceive the bitterness of his soul. He beheld himself to be as the dog in the fable that had dropped the substance to snatch at a delusive shadow.

He sought comfort in a line on the open page before him:

“You are mistaken,” she began. “It isn’t that.”

But they were fated to misunderstand each other.

Jealousy, that troubler of reason, had been over-busy with his wits as it had with hers.

But they were fated to misunderstand each other.

Jealousy, that troubler of reason, had been over-busy with his wits as it had with hers.

“What is it, then?” quoth he, and added the question: “Lord Julian?”

Blood looked at him in surprise. Then he shrugged. “Faith, I’m not to blame for your lordship’s poor memory.

I say that it was so; and I don’t lie. I’ve never found it necessary.

In any case ye couldn’t have supposed that I should consent to anything different.”

“I had imagined that your lordship would have had some education.”

He was at pains, you see, to be provocative.

“It’s not the literal meaning I am asking, sir,” said Lord Julian, with frosty dignity. “I want to know what you desire me to understand?”

“

Ye mean that ye haven’t the strength of character to resist the urgings of a bully.

” He was apparently at his ease, and actually smiling. “Well, well—as I said before—praemonitus, praemunitus. I’m afraid that ye’re no scholar, Bishop, or ye’d know that I means forewarned, forearmed.”

“

Sure, I walked into a trap, as ye feared, Jeremy,

” Blood hailed him. “But I walked out again, and fetched the trapper with me. He loves his life, does this fat rascal.”

“Sure, I walked into a trap, as ye feared, Jeremy,” Blood hailed him. “

But I walked out again, and fetched the trapper with me. He loves his life, does this fat rascal.

”

Ye’ve said his lordship made a mistake when he handed me the commission which the Secretary of State did me the honour to design for me. I’m disposed to agree with you; so I’ll take to the sea again. Cras ingens iterabimus aequor.

It’s the fine Latin scholar ye’ll be when I’ve done with ye.

I’ll be getting back to Tortuga and my buccaneers, who at least are honest, decent fellows. So I’ve fetched ye aboard as a hostage.”

“Sure, now, I am not constraining you at all.

I’m giving you a perfectly free choice between the pen and the rope. It’s a matter for yourself entirely.

”

“A safe voyage home to you, Colonel, darling,” said he in valediction, and from his easy, smiling manner you would never have dreamt of the pain he carried in his breast. “

It’s the second time ye’ve served me for a hostage. Ye’ll be well advised to avoid a third.

I’m not lucky to you, Colonel, as you should be perceiving.”

“

Ye’ve two eyes to see with, and ye ask me, who’s only got one, what it is ye see!

”

His game—as he’d secretly told me—was to follow and give chase. Whether that’s the game he played or not I can’t tell ye; but here he is afore me as I’d expected he would be.”

There was a great historian lost in Wolverstone. He had the right imagination that knows just how far it is safe to stray from the truth and just how far to colour it so as to change its shape for his own purposes.

Having delivered himself of his decoction of fact and falsehood, and thereby added one more to the exploits of Peter Blood, he enquired where the Captain might be found.

This is the New World. It is not merely new; it is novel to one reared amid the superstitions of the Old. That novelty you have not yet had time, perhaps, to realize; therefore I overlook the offensive epithet you have used.

But justice is justice in the New World as in the Old, and injustice as intolerable here as there.

Now justice demands the enlargement of my officer and the arrest and punishment of yours. That justice I invite you, with submission, to administer.”

“Blood!” shrilled the little man. “O ’Sblood! A pirate!” He swung to the Colossus who followed him—“A damned pirate, van der Kuylen.

Rend my vitals, but we’re come from Scylla to Charybdis.

”

“There’s a misapprehension, if I may make so bold as to point it out,” put in Blood quietly. “

You are not captured, gentlemen; you are rescued.

When you realize it, perhaps it will occur to you to acknowledge the hospitality I am offering you. It may be poor, but it is the best at my disposal.”

“

D’ye mean, sir, that they’ve roused themselves at home, and kicked out that scoundrel James and his gang of ruffians?

”

“In guns—aye,” said Blood, and he smiled. “

But there’s more than guns that matter in these affairs.

If your lordship would like to see an action fought at sea as an action should be fought, this is your opportunity.”