Under the compulsion of that sharp tone, those resolute eyes, and that gleaming pistol, Bishop obeyed without demur.  His recent foul volubility was stemmed.  He could not trust himself to speak.  Captain Blood tucked his left arm through the Deputy-Governor’s proffered right.  Then he thrust his own right hand with its pistol back into the breast of his doublet.

“Though invisible, it’s aiming at ye none the less, and I give you my word of honour that I’ll shoot ye dead upon the very least provocation, whether that provocation is yours or another’s.  Ye’ll bear that in mind, Lord Julian.  And now, ye greasy hangman, step out as brisk and lively as ye can, and behave as naturally as ye may, or it’s the black stream of Cocytus ye’ll be contemplating.”  Arm in arm they passed through the house, and down the garden, where Arabella lingered, awaiting Peter Blood’s return.

Consideration of his parting words had brought her first turmoil of mind, then a clear perception of what might be indeed the truth of the death of Levasseur.  She perceived that the particular inference drawn from it might similarly have been drawn from Blood’s deliverance of Mary Traill.  When a man so risks his life for a woman, the rest is easily assumed.  For the men who will take such risks without hope of personal gain are few.  Blood was of those few, as he had proved in the case of Mary Traill.

It needed no further assurances of his to convince her that she had done him a monstrous injustice.  She remembered words he had used — words overheard aboard his ship (which he had named the Arabella) on the night of her deliverance from the Spanish admiral; words he had uttered when she had approved his acceptance of the King’s commission; the words he had spoken to her that very morning, which had but served to move her indignation.  All these assumed a fresh meaning in her mind, delivered now from its unwarranted preconceptions.

Therefore she lingered there in the garden, awaiting his return that she might make amends; that she might set a term to all misunderstanding.  In impatience she awaited him.  Yet her patience, it seemed, was to be tested further.  For when at last he came, it was in company — unusually close and intimate company — with her uncle.  In vexation she realized that explanations must be postponed.  Could she have guessed the extent of that postponement, vexation would have been changed into despair.

He passed, with his companion, from that fragrant garden into the courtyard of the fort.  Here the Commandant, who had been instructed to hold himself in readiness with the necessary men against the need to effect the arrest of Captain Blood, was amazed by the curious spectacle of the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica strolling forth arm in arm and apparently on the friendliest terms with the intended prisoner.  For as they went, Blood was chatting and laughing briskly.

They passed out of the gates unchallenged, and so came to the mole where the cock-boat from the Arabella was waiting.  They took their places side by side in the stern sheets, and were pulled away together, always very close and friendly, to the great red ship where Jeremy Pitt so anxiously awaited news.