登陆注册
14723400000082

第82章

"Ye're my guest aboard this ship," said he, "and I still have some notion of decent behaviour left me from other days, thief and pirate though I may be. So I'll not be telling you what I think of you for daring to bring me this offer, or of my Lord Sunderland - since he's your kinsman for having the impudence to send it. But it does not surprise me at all that one who is a minister of James Stuart's should conceive that every man is to be seduced by bribes into betraying those who trust him." He flung out an arm in the direction of the waist, whence came the half-melancholy chant of the lounging buccaneers.

"Again you misapprehend me," cried Lord Julian, between concern and indignation. "That is not intended. Your followers will be included in your commission.""And d' ye think they'll go with me to hunt their brethren - the Brethren of the Coast? On my soul, Lord Julian, it is yourself does the misapprehending. Are there not even notions of honour left in England? Oh, and there's more to it than that, even. D' ye think I could take a commission of King James's? I tell you I wouldn't be soiling my hands with it - thief and pirate's hands though they be. Thief and pirate is what you heard Miss Bishop call me to-day - a thing of scorn, an outcast. And who made me that? Who made me thief and pirate?""If you were a rebel ... ?" his lordship was beginning.

"Ye must know that I was no such thing - no rebel at all. It wasn't even pretended. If it were, I could forgive them. But not even that cloak could they cast upon their foulness. Oh, no; there was no mistake. I was convicted for what I did, neither more nor less.

That bloody vampire Jeffreys - bad cess to him! - sentenced me to death, and his worthy master James Stuart afterwards sent me into slavery, because I had performed an act of mercy; because compassionately and without thought for creed or politics I had sought to relieve the sufferings of a fellow-creature; because Ihad dressed the wounds of a man who was convicted of treason.

That was all my offence. You'll find it in the records. And for that I was sold into slavery: because by the law of England, as administered by James Stuart in violation of the laws of God, who harbours or comforts a rebel is himself adjudged guilty of rebellion.

D' ye dream, man, what it is to be a slave?"

He checked suddenly at the very height of his passion. A moment he paused, then cast it from him as if it had been a cloak. His voice sank again. He uttered a little laugh of weariness and contempt.

"But there! I grow hot for nothing at all. I explain myself, Ithink, and God knows, it is not my custom. I am grateful to you, Lord Julian, for your kindly intentions. I am so. But ye'll understand, perhaps. Ye look as if ye might."Lord Julian stood still. He was deeply stricken by the other's words, the passionate, eloquent outburst that in a few sharp, clear-cut strokes had so convincingly presented the man's bitter case against humanity, his complete apologia and justification for all that could be laid to his charge. His lordship looked at that keen, intrepid face gleaming lividly in the light of the great poop lantern, and his own eyes were troubled. He was abashed.

He fetched a heavy sigh. "A pity," he said slowly. "Oh, blister me - a cursed pity!" He held out his hand, moved to it on a sudden generous impulse. "But no offence between us, Captain Blood:""Oh, no offence. But... I'm a thief and a pirate." He laughed without mirth, and, disregarding the proffered hand, swung on his heel.

Lord Julian stood a moment, watching the tall figure as it moved away towards the taffrail. Then letting his arms fall helplessly to his sides in dejection, he departed.

Just within the doorway of the alley leading to the cabin, he ran into Miss Bishop. Yet she had not been coming out, for her back was towards him, and she was moving in the same direction. He followed her, his mind too full of Captain Blood to be concerned just then with her movements.

In the cabin he flung into a chair, and exploded, with a violence altogether foreign to his nature.

"Damme if ever I met a man I liked better, or even a man I liked as well. Yet there's nothing to be done with him.""So I heard," she admitted in a small voice. She was very white, and she kept her eyes upon her folded hands.

He looked up in surprise, and then sat conning her with brooding glance. "I wonder, now," he said presently, "if the mischief is of your working. Your words have rankled with him. He threw them at me again and again. He wouldn't take the King's commission; he wouldn't take my hand even. What's to be done with a fellow like that? He'll end on a yardarm for all his luck.

And the quixotic fool is running into danger at the present moment on our behalf.""How?" she asked him with a sudden startled interest.

"How? Have you forgotten that he's sailing to Jamaica, and that Jamaica is the headquarters of the English fleet? True, your uncle commands it ..."She leaned across the table to interrupt him, and he observed that her breathing had grown labored, that her eyes were dilating in alarm.

"But there is no hope for him in that!" she cried. "Oh, don't imagine it! He has no bitterer enemy in the world! My uncle is a hard, unforgiving man. I believe that it was nothing but the hope of taking and hanging Captain Blood that made my uncle leave his Barbados plantations to accept the deputy-governorship of Jamaica.

Captain Blood doesn't know that, of course ..." She paused with a little gesture of helplessness.

"I can't think that it would make the least difference if he did,"said his lordship gravely. "A man who can forgive such an enemy as Don Miguel and take up this uncompromising attitude with me isn't to be judged by ordinary rules. He's chivalrous to the point of idiocy.""And yet he has been what he has been and done what he has done in these last three years," said she, but she said it sorrowfully now, without any of her earlier scorn.

Lord Julian was sententious, as I gather that he often was. "Life can be infernally complex," he sighed.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 第五纪文明

    第五纪文明

    人类文明繁衍至今,已经经过了数以万年的漫长历程。自古至今,所有有关于人类来源的探索,均无法完全解释现有文明的起点。从古化石中获取的信息,都只能得到一个通用的信息——他们并不是我们的祖先!我们究竟从何处来?我们存在的意义到底是什么?我们又该往何处去?通过本书,我们一起来掀起“进化论”这个蒙蔽了全人类最终极谎言的一角,窥探它背后的蛛丝马迹。
  • 一叶生死

    一叶生死

    春天,叶生了,于夏季达到巅峰,枯于荒秋;死于寒冬。然,再生于春;死于冬。生生不息,似已达到永恒,亦或者,是无数相同叶的轮回?又或者本就是死的。
  • 活死人晴岚

    活死人晴岚

    晴岚只是个普通学生,同学贝子玉丢了钱赖在她身上,她莫名其妙成了小偷,很多朋友没有了,郁郁寡欢之时她竟穿越到了70多年前的世界,机缘巧合之下救了很多人,最后竟发现自己竟然无法死亡……
  • 大乘四法经-实叉难陀

    大乘四法经-实叉难陀

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 我的附身妖女

    我的附身妖女

    恶少欺凌,妖女附身。一个肉身两个灵魂,为保性命只得修真。本以为只是一次意外引发的后果,却阴谋重重,机关算尽,结局意想不到。洛天说:我不介意被妖女附身,但是妖女居然……居然……是个……丑八怪!
  • The Titan

    The Titan

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 知味

    知味

    我的故事里有你的风景,你的故事里有我的痕迹,他在你的故事中踌躇了片刻,我们在不同的故事中扮演不同的角色,串联着不同的风情,一个故事的开始述说着繁花红尘,想象中的美好,现实中的憧憬,很久很久以前我有个梦想一直到现在才有了这个决心,我想把我想象中的故事写出来,所以大家一起来看我的故事画卷吧
  • 妖孽大神:坑你一万年

    妖孽大神:坑你一万年

    初见,她提着一把大刀将他从城西一路砍到了城东,后来才知道砍错了人!再见,她和他身为两个敌对帮派的帮主,却坐下喝起了茶,让一干帮众不知所措!求婚时,他将自己费心种了七天的玫瑰悉数奉上;结婚时,她把全服务器里最破的戒指交换给了他,他恍然觉得自己被坑了!而某女只丢下一句“不服来战!”
  • 亡灵之纵横修真

    亡灵之纵横修真

    东西方文明碰撞,刀光剑影,尔虞我诈……这里没有同情与怜悯,有的只是阴谋与狠辣!在这碰撞中,一位亡灵法师悄然跑到修真的国度,开始一段鸡飞狗跳之旅……
  • 执掌大罗

    执掌大罗

    作为一个随时可能消散的新死之鬼,穆青自封成神,穿梭三千世界,无量星辰,一步步走上了执掌诸天大罗的道路。什么是真相,前路在何处......这是一个没有金手指帮助,孤身驰入星辰大海,困难重重,披荆斩棘的道路。一本集合了武侠、穿越、玄学、修真、死神空间、魔法的大杂烩。