He showed some surprise.  Then he smiled a little.  “Shrewd advocacy,” he approved it.  “You should have spoken to the crew.”

And then, the note of irony deepening in his voice:  “Do you suppose now that this honourable service might redeem one who was a pirate and a thief?”

Her glance fell away.  Her voice faltered a little in replying.  “If he... needs redeeming.  Perhaps... perhaps he has been judged too harshly.”

The blue eyes flashed, and the firm lips relaxed their grim set.

“Why... if ye think that,” he said, considering her, an odd hunger in his glance, “life might have its uses, after all, and even the service of King James might become tolerable.”

Looking beyond her, across the water, he observed a boat putting off from one of the great ships, which, hove to now, were rocking gently some three hundred yards away.  Abruptly his manner changed.  He was like one recovering, taking himself in hand again.  “If you will go below, and get your gear and your woman, you shall presently be sent aboard one of the ships of the fleet.”  He pointed to the boat as he spoke.

She left him, and thereafter with Wolverstone, leaning upon the rail, he watched the approach of that boat, manned by a dozen sailors, and commanded by a scarlet figure seated stiffly in the stern sheets.  He levelled his telescope upon that figure.

“It’ll not be Bishop himself,” said Wolverstone, between question and assertion.

“No.”  Blood closed his telescope.  “I don’t know who it is.”

“Ha!” Wolverstone vented an ejaculation of sneering mirth.  “For all his eagerness, Bishop’d be none so willing to come, hisself.  He’s been aboard this hulk afore, and we made him swim for it that time.  He’ll have his memories.  So he sends a deputy.”

This deputy proved to be an officer named Calverley, a vigorous, self-sufficient fellow, comparatively fresh from England, whose manner made it clear that he came fully instructed by Colonel Bishop upon the matter of how to handle the pirates.

His air, as he stepped into the waist of the Arabella, was haughty, truculent, and disdainful.

Blood, the King’s commission now in his pocket, and Lord Julian standing beside him, waited to receive him, and Captain Calverley was a little taken aback at finding himself confronted by two men so very different outwardly from anything that he had expected.  But he lost none of his haughty poise, and scarcely deigned a glance at the swarm of fierce, half-naked fellows lounging in a semicircle to form a background.

“Good-day to you, sir,” Blood hailed him pleasantly.  “I have the honour to give you welcome aboard the Arabella.  My name is Blood — Captain Blood, at your service.  You may have heard of me.”

Captain Calverley stared hard.  The airy manner of this redoubtable buccaneer was hardly what he had looked for in a desperate fellow, compelled to ignominious surrender.  A thin, sour smile broke on the officer’s haughty lips.