He entered the stockade in their wake, and as they broke their ranks to seek their various respective huts, he beheld Colonel Bishop in talk with Kent, the overseer.  The pair were standing by the stocks, planted in the middle of that green space for the punishment of offending slaves.

As he advanced, Bishop turned to regard him, scowling.  “Where have you been this while?” he bawled, and although a minatory note was normal to the Colonel’s voice, yet Blood felt his heart tightening apprehensively.

“I’ve been at my work in the town,” he answered.  “Mrs. Patch has a fever and Mr. Dekker has sprained his ankle.”

“I sent for you to Dekker’s, and you were not there.  You are given to idling, my fine fellow.  We shall have to quicken you one of these days unless you cease from abusing the liberty you enjoy.  D’ye forget that ye’re a rebel convict?”

“I am not given the chance,” said Blood, who never could learn to curb his tongue.

“By God!  Will you be pert with me?”

Remembering all that was at stake, growing suddenly conscious that from the huts surrounding the enclosure anxious ears were listening, he instantly practised an unusual submission.

“Not pert, sir.  I...  I am sorry I should have been sought....”

“Aye, and you’ll be sorrier yet.  There’s the Governor with an attack of gout, screaming like a wounded horse, and you nowhere to be found.  Be off, man — away with you at speed to Government House!  You’re awaited, I tell you.  Best lend him a horse, Kent, or the lout’ll be all night getting there.”

They bustled him away, choking almost from a reluctance that he dared not show.  The thing was unfortunate; but after all not beyond remedy.  The escape was set for midnight, and he should easily be back by then.  He mounted the horse that Kent procured him, intending to make all haste.

“How shall I reenter the stockade, sir?” he enquired at parting.

“You’ll not reenter it,” said Bishop.  “When they’ve done with you at Government House, they may find a kennel for you there until morning.”

Peter Blood’s heart sank like a stone through water.

“But...” he began.

“Be off, I say.  Will you stand there talking until dark?  His excellency is waiting for you.”  And with his cane Colonel Bishop slashed the horse’s quarters so brutally that the beast bounded forward all but unseating her rider.

Peter Blood went off in a state of mind bordering on despair.  And there was occasion for it.  A postponement of the escape at least until to-morrow night was necessary now, and postponement must mean the discovery of Nuttall’s transaction and the asking of questions it would be difficult to answer.

It was in his mind to slink back in the night, once his work at Government House were done, and from the outside of the stockade make known to Pitt and the others his presence, and so have them join him that their project might still be carried out.  But in this he reckoned without the Governor, whom he found really in the thrall of a severe attack of gout, and almost as severe an attack of temper nourished by Blood’s delay.