The doctor was kept in constant attendance upon him until long after midnight, when at last he was able to ease the sufferer a little by a bleeding.  Thereupon he would have withdrawn.  But Steed would not hear of it.  Blood must sleep in his own chamber to be at hand in case of need.  It was as if Fate made sport of him.  For that night at least the escape must be definitely abandoned.

Not until the early hours of the morning did Peter Blood succeed in making a temporary escape from Government House on the ground that he required certain medicaments which he must, himself, procure from the apothecary.

On that pretext, he made an excursion into the awakening town, and went straight to Nuttall, whom he found in a state of livid panic.  The unfortunate debtor, who had sat up waiting through the night, conceived that all was discovered and that his own ruin would be involved.  Peter Blood quieted his fears.

“It will be for to-night instead,” he said, with more assurance than he felt, “if I have to bleed the Governor to death.  Be ready as last night.”

“But if there are questions meanwhile?” bleated Nuttall.  He was a thin, pale, small-featured, man with weak eyes that now blinked desperately.

“Answer as best you can.  Use your wits, man.  I can stay no longer.”  And Peter went off to the apothecary for his pretexted drugs.

Within an hour of his going came an officer of the Secretary’s to Nuttall’s miserable hovel.  The seller of the boat had — as by law required since the coming of the rebels-convict — duly reported the sale at the Secretary’s office, so that he might obtain the reimbursement of the ten-pound surety into which every keeper of a small boat was compelled to enter.  The Secretary’s office postponed this reimbursement until it should have obtained confirmation of the transaction.

“We are informed that you have bought a wherry from Mr. Robert Farrell,” said the officer.

“That is so,” said Nuttall, who conceived that for him this was the end of the world.

“You are in no haste, it seems, to declare the same at the Secretary’s office.”  The emissary had a proper bureaucratic haughtiness.

Nuttall’s weak eyes blinked at a redoubled rate.

“To... to declare it?”

“Ye know it’s the law.”

“I...  I didn’t, may it please you.”

“But it’s in the proclamation published last January.”

“I...  I can’t read, sir.  I...  I didn’t know.”

“Faugh!” The messenger withered him with his disdain.

“Well, now you’re informed.  See to it that you are at the Secretary’s office before noon with the ten pounds surety into which you are obliged to enter.”