“Yes. She was a witness of the encounter. Blood carried her off when he had disposed of his brother-buccaneer.”
“And the dead man's followers allowed it?” He caught the note of incredulity in her voice, but missed the note of relief with which it was blent. “Oh, I don't believe the tale. I won't believe it!”
“I honour you for that, Miss Bishop. It strained my own belief that men should be so callous, until this Cahusac afforded me the explanation.”
“What?” She checked her unbelief, an unbelief that had uplifted her from an inexplicable dismay. Clutching the rail, she swung round to face his lordship with that question. Later he was to remember and perceive in her present behaviour a certain oddness which went disregarded now.
“Blood purchased their consent, and his right to carry the girl off. He paid them in pearls that were worth more than twenty thousand pieces of eight.” His lordship laughed again with a touch of contempt. “A handsome price! Faith, they're scoundrels all—just thieving, venal curs. And faith, it's a pretty tale this for a lady's ear.”
She looked away from him again, and found that her sight was blurred. After a moment in a voice less steady than before she asked him:
“Why should this Frenchman have told you such a tale? Did he hate this Captain Blood?”
“I did not gather that,” said his lordship slowly. “He related it... oh, just as a commonplace, an instance of buccaneering ways.
“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.”