Captain Blood thrust a parchment under Calverley’s bulging eyes.  The officer scanned it, particularly the seals and signature.  He stepped back, a baffled, impotent man.  He bowed helplessly.

“I must return to Colonel Bishop for my orders,” he informed them.

At that moment a lane was opened in the ranks of the men, and through this came Miss Bishop followed by her octoroon woman.  Over his shoulder Captain Blood observed her approach.

“Perhaps, since Colonel Bishop is with you, you will convey his niece to him.  Miss Bishop was aboard the Royal Mary also, and I rescued her together with his lordship.  She will be able to acquaint her uncle with the details of that and of the present state of affairs.”

Swept thus from surprise to surprise, Captain Calverley could do no more than bow again.

“As for me,” said Lord Julian, with intent to make Miss Bishop’s departure free from all interference on the part of the buccaneers, “I shall remain aboard the Arabella until we reach Port Royal.  My compliments to Colonel Bishop.  Say that I look forward to making his acquaintance there.”

CHAPTER XXII

HOSTILITIES

In the great harbour of Port Royal, spacious enough to have given moorings to all the ships of all the navies of the world, the Arabella rode at anchor.  Almost she had the air of a prisoner, for a quarter of a mile ahead, to starboard, rose the lofty, massive single round tower of the fort, whilst a couple of cables’-length astern, and to larboard, rode the six men-of-war that composed the Jamaica squadron.

Abeam with the Arabella, across the harbour, were the flat-fronted white buildings of that imposing city that came down to the very water’s edge.  Behind these the red roofs rose like terraces, marking the gentle slope upon which the city was built, dominated here by a turret, there by a spire, and behind these again a range of green hills with for ultimate background a sky that was like a dome of polished steel.

On a cane day-bed that had been set for him on the quarter-deck, sheltered from the dazzling, blistering sunshine by an improvised awning of brown sailcloth, lounged Peter Blood, a calf-bound, well-thumbed copy of Horace’s Odes neglected in his hands.

From immediately below him came the swish of mops and the gurgle of water in the scuppers, for it was still early morning, and under the directions of Hayton, the bo’sun, the swabbers were at work in the waist and forecastle.  Despite the heat and the stagnant air, one of the toilers found breath to croak a ribald buccaneering ditty: 

  “For we laid her board and board,
   And we put her to the sword,
   And we sank her in the deep blue sea. 
   So It’s heigh-ho, and heave-a-ho! 
   Who’ll sail for the Main with me?”

Blood fetched a sigh, and the ghost of a smile played over his lean, sun-tanned face.  Then the black brows came together above the vivid blue eyes, and thought swiftly closed the door upon his immediate surroundings.