Captain Blood's cold blue eyes played swiftly over all this and more. Then, almost roughly, he extricated the lady from that little mob of stricken questioning sympathisers who little guessed to what extent she was the author of their woes. At once conducted and conducting, he made his way up the gently rising ground. They passed a party of British sailors filling water–casks at a fountain which had been contrived by the damming of a brook. They passed the church with its busy graveyard. They passed a company of militia at drill; men in blue coats with red facings who had been hurriedly brought over by Colonel de Coulevain from Les Carmes after the harm was done.
Delayed on the way by others whom they met and who must stop to cry out in wonder at sight of Madame de Coulevain, accompanied by this tall, stern stranger, they came at last by a wide gateway into a luxuriant garden, and by an avenue of palms to a long, low house of stone and timber.
There were no signs of damage here. The Spaniards who had yesterday invaded the place, if, indeed, they had invaded it, had wrought no other mischief than to carry off the Governor's lady. The elderly negro who admitted them broke into shrill cries upon beholding his dishevelled mistress in her crumpled gown of flowered silk. He laughed and wept at once. He uttered scraps of prayer. He capered like a dog. He caught her hand and slobbered kisses on it.
«You appear to be loved, madame,» said Captain Blood when at last they stood alone in the long dining–room.
«Of course that must surprise you,» she sneered, with that twist of her full lips which he had come to know.
The door of a connecting–room was abruptly flung open, and a tall, heavily–built man with prominent features and sallow, deeply–lined cheeks stood at gaze. His militia coat, of blue with red facings, was stiff with tarnished gold lace. His dark bloodshot eyes opened wide at sight of her. He turned pale under his tan.
«Antoinette!» he ejaculated. He came forward unsteadily and took her by the shoulders. «Is it really you? They told me…But where have you been since yesterday?»
«Where they told you I was, no doubt.» There was little in her tone besides weariness. «Fortunately, or unfortunately, this gentleman delivered me, and he has brought me safely back.»
«Fortunately or unfortunately?» he echoed, and scowled. His lip curled. The dislike of her in his eyes was not to be mistaken. He took his hands from her shoulders, and half turned to consider her companion. «This gentleman?» Then his glance darkened further. «A Spaniard?»
Captain Blood met the frown with a smile. «A Dutchman, sir,» he lied. But the rest of his tale was true. «By great good fortune I was aboard that Spanish ship, the Estremadura. I had been picked up by her at sea a few days before. I had access to the great cabin in which the Spanish commander had locked himself with Madame your wife. I interrupted his amorous intentions. In fact, I killed him with my hands.» And he added a brief account of how, thereafter, he had conveyed her from the galleon.