Mr. Ives permitted himself to smile upon his Excellency's excitement. «The same, sir.»
Colonel Courtney flung his napkin amid the dishes on the spread table, and rose, still incredulous. «And he's here? Here? Is he mad? Has the sun touched him? Stab me, I'll have him in irons for his impudence before I dine, and on his way to England before …» He broke off. «Egad!» he cried, and swung to his second in command. «We'd better have him in, Macartney.»
Macartney's round face, as red as his coat, showed an amazement no less than the Governor's. That a rascal with a price on his head should have the impudence to pay a morning call on the governor of an English settlement was something that left Captain Macartney almost speechless and more incapable of thought than usual.
Mr. Ives admitted into the long, cool, sparsely furnished room, a tall, spare gentleman, very elegant in a suit of biscuit–coloured taffetas. A diamond of price gleamed amid the choice lace at his throat, a diamond buckle flashed from the band of the plumed hat he carried, a long pear–shaped pearl hung from his left ear and glowed against the black curls of his periwig. He leaned upon a gold–mounted ebony cane. So unlike a buccaneer was this modish gentleman that they stared in silence into the long, lean, sardonic countenance with its high–bridged nose and eyes that looked startlingly blue and cold in a face that was burnt to the colour of a red Indian's. More and more incredulous the Colonel brought out a question with a jerk.
«You are Captain Blood?»
The gentleman bowed. Captain Macartney gasped and desired his vitals to be stabbed. The Colonel said «Egad!» again, and his pale eyes bulged. He looked at his pallid wife, at Macartney, and then again at Captain Blood. «You're a daring rogue. A daring rogue, egad!»
«I see you've heard of me.»
«But not enough to credit this. Ye'll not have come to surrender?»
The buccaneer sauntered forward to the table. Instinctively Macartney rose.
«If you'll be reading this it will save a world of explanations.» And he laid before his Excellency the letter from the Spanish Admiral. «The fortune of war brought it into my hands together with the gentleman to whom it is addressed.»