Blood span round. On the threshold of the adjacent room from which Colonel de Coulevain had earlier issued stood now the stocky figure of a youngish man in a red coat that was laced with silver. In the plump, florid countenance Captain Blood recognized at a glance his old acquaintance Captain Macartney, who had been second in command at Antigua when some months before Captain Blood had slipped through the fingers of the British there. His momentary surprise at finding Macartney here was dispelled by remembrance of the English frigate which had passed him as they were approaching Basseterre.
The officer was smiling hatefully. «Good morning, Captain Blood. This time you have no buccaneers at your heels, no ships, no demi–cannons with which to intimidate us.»
So ominous was the tone, so clear its hint of the speaker's intention, that Blood's hand flew instinctively to his left side. The Englishman's smile became a laugh.
«Not even a sword, Captain Blood.»
«Its absence will no doubt encourage your impertinences.»
But now the Colonel was intervening. «Captain Blood, did you say? Captain Blood? Not the filibuster? Not…?»
«The filibuster indeed; the buccaneer, the transported rebel, the escaped convict on whose head the British Government has placed the price of a thousand pounds.»
«A thousand pounds!» Coulevain sucked his breath. His dark, blood–injected eyes returned to the contemplation of his wife's preserver. «Sir, sir! Is this true, sir?»
Blood shrugged. «Of course it's true. Who else do you suppose could have done what I have told you that I did last night?»
Coulevain continued to stare at him with increasing wonder. «And you contrived to pass yourself off as a Dutchman on a Spanish ship?»