Hornblower in the West Indies

The Bewildered Pirates

That was young Spendlove singing lustily only two rooms away from Hornblower’s at Admiralty House, and he might as well be in the same room, as all the windows were open to let in the Jamaican sea breeze.

That was Gerard joining in.

“My compliments to Mr. Gerard and Mr. Spendlove,” growled Hornblower to Giles, who was helping him dress, and that caterwauling is to stop. Repeat that to make sure you have the words right.”

“His Lordship’s compliments, gentlemen, and that caterwauling is to stop,” repeated Giles, dutifully.

“Very well, run and say it.”

Giles ran, and Hornblower was gratified to hear the noise cease abruptly. The fact that those two young men were singing—and still more the fact that they had forgotten he was within earshot—was proof that they were feeling lighthearted, as might be expected, seeing they were dressing for a ball. Yet it was no excuse, for they knew well enough that their tone-deaf Commander-in-Chief detested music, and they should also have realised that he would be more testy than usual, on account of that very ball, because it meant that he would be forced to spend a long evening listening to those dreary sounds, cloying and irritating at the same moment. There would certainly be a table or two of whist—Mr Hough would be aware of his principal guest’s tastes—but it was too much to hope for that all sound of music would be excluded from the card-room. The prospect of a ball was by no means as exhilarating to Hornblower as to his flag-lieutenant and to his secretary.

Hornblower tied his white neckcloth and painfully adjusted it to geometrical symmetry, and Giles helped him into his black dresscoat. Hornblower regarded the result in the mirror, by the light of the candles round its frame. At least tolerable, he said to himself. The growing peacetime convention whereby naval and military men appeared in civilian clothes had a good deal to recommend it; so had the other increasing fad for men to wear black dresscoats. Barbara had helped him select this one, and had supervised its fitting by the tailor. The cut was excellent, Hornblower decided, turning back and forth before the mirror, and black and white suited him. “Only gentlemen can wear black and white,” Barbara had said, and that was very gratifying.

Giles handed him his tall hat and he studied the additional effect. Then he took up his white gloves, remembered to remove his hat again, and stepped out through the door which Giles opened for him and entered the corridor where Gerard and Spendlove, in their best uniforms, were waiting for him.

“I must apologise on behalf of Spendlove and myself for the singing, My Lord,” said Gerard.

The softening effect of the black dresscoat was evident when Hornblower refrained from a rasping reprimand.

“What would Miss Lucy say, Spendlove, if she heard you singing about the dames of France?” he asked.

Spendlove’s answering grin was very attractive.

“I must ask Your Lordship’s further indulgence not to tell her about it,” he said.

“I’ll make that conditional upon your further good behaviour,” said Hornblower.

The open carriage was waiting outside the front door of Admiralty House; four seamen stood by with lanterns to add to the light thrown by the lamps on the porch. Hornblower climbed in and seated himself. Etiquette was different here on land; Hornblower missed the shrilling of the pipes that he felt should accompany this ceremonial, as it would if it were a boat he was entering, and in a carriage the senior officer entered first, so that after he was seated Spendlove and Gerard had to run round and enter by the other door. Gerard sat beside him and Spendlove sat opposite, his back to the horses. As the door shut the carriage moved forward, between the lanterns at the gate, and out to the pitch dark Jamaican night. Hornblower breathed the warm, tropical air and grudgingly admitted to himself that after all it was no great hardship to attend a ball.

“Perhaps you have a rich marriage in mind, Spendlove?” he asked. “I understand Miss Lucy will inherit it all. But I advise you to make certain before committing yourself that there are no nephews on the father’s side.”

“A rich marriage might be desirable, My Lord,” replied Spendlove’s voice out of the darkness, “but I must remind you that in affairs of the heart I have been handicapped from birth—or at least from my baptism.”

“From your baptism?” repeated Hornblower, puzzled.

“Yes, My Lord. You remember my name, perhaps?”

“Erasmus,” said Hornblower.

“Exactly, My Lord. It is not adapted to endearments. Could any woman fall in love with an Erasmus? Could any woman bring herself to breathe the words ‘Razzy, darling’?”

“I fancy it could happen,” said Hornblower.

“May I live long enough to hear it,” said Spendlove.

It was remarkably agreeable to be driving thus through the Jamaican night behind two good horses and with two pleasant young men; especially, as he told himself smugly, because he had done work satisfactory enough to justify relaxation. His command was in good order, the policing of the Caribbean was proceeding satisfactorily, and smuggling and piracy were being reduced to small proportions. Tonight he had no responsibilities. He was in no danger at all, not any. Danger was far away, over the horizons both of time and space. He could lean back, relaxed, against the leather cushions of the carriage, taking only moderate care not to crease his black dresscoat or crumple the careful pleats of his shirt.

Naturally, his reception at the Houghs’s house was somewhat overpowering. There was a good deal of ‘My Lord’ and ‘His Lordship’. Hough was a substantial planter, a man of considerable wealth, with enough of dislike for English winters not to be the usual West Indian absentee landlord. Yet for all his wealth he was greatly impressed by the fact that he was entertaining, in one and the same person, a Peer and an Admiral and a Commander-in-Chief—and someone whose influence might at any moment be of great importance to him. The warmth of his greeting, and of Mrs Hough’s, was so great that it even overflowed round Gerard and Spendlove as well. Perhaps the Houghs felt that if they wished to be sure of standing well with the Commander-in-Chief it might be as well to cultivate good relations with his flag-lieutenant and secretary, too.

Lucy Hough was a pretty enough girl of some seventeen or eighteen years of age whom Hornblower had already met on a few occasions. Hornblower told himself he could feel no interest in a child straight from the schoolroom—almost straight from the nursery—however pretty. He smiled at her and she dropped her eyes, looked up at him again, and once more looked away. It was interesting that she was not nearly so timid when she met the glances and acknowledged the bows of the young men who were far more likely to be of interest to her.

“Your Lordship does not dance, I understand?” said Hough.

“It is painful to be reminded of what I am missing in the presence of so much beauty,” replied Hornblower with another smile at Mrs Hough and at Lucy.

“Perhaps a rubber of whist, then, My Lord?” suggested Hough.

“The Goddess of Chance instead of the Muse of Music,” said Hornblower—he always tried to talk about music as if it meant something to him—“I will woo the one instead of the other.”

“From what I know about Your Lordship’s skill at whist,” said Hough, “I would say that as regards Your Lordship the Goddess of Chance has but small need for wooing.”

The ball had been in progress, apparently, for some time before Hornblower’s arrival. There were two score young people on the floor of the great room, a dozen dowagers on chairs round the wall, an orchestra in the corner. Hough led the way to another room; Hornblower dismissed his two young men with a nod, and settled down to whist with Hough and a couple of formidable old ladies. The closing of the heavy door shut out, luckily, nearly all the exasperating din of the orchestra; the old ladies played a sound game, and a pleasant hour enough went by. It was terminated by the entrance of Mrs Hough.

“It is time for the Polonaise before supper,” she announced. “I really must beg you to leave your cards and come and witness it.”

“Would Your Lordship—?” asked Hough apologetically.

“Mrs Hough’s wish is my command,” said Hornblower.

The ballroom was, of course, stifling hot. Faces were flushed and shiny, but there was no lack of energy apparent as the double line formed up for the Polonaise while the orchestra grated out its mysterious noises to encourage the young people. Spendlove was leading Lucy by the hand and they were exchanging happy glances. Hornblower, from the weary age of forty-six, could look with condescension at these young men and women in their immature teens and twenties, tolerant of their youth and enthusiasm. The noises the orchestra made became more jerky and confusing, but the young people could find some sense in them. They capered round the room, skirts swaying and coattails flapping, everyone smiling and light-hearted; the double lines became rings, melted into lines again, turned and re-formed, until in the end with a final hideous crash from the orchestra the women sank low in curtsies and the men bent themselves double before them—a pretty sight once the music had ceased. There was a burst of laughter and applause before the lines broke up. The women, with sidelong looks at each other, gathered into groups which edged out of the room. They were retiring to repair the damages sustained in the heat of action.

Hornblower met Lucy’s eyes again, and once more she looked away and then back at him. Shy? Eager? It was hard to tell with these mere children; but it was not the sort of glance she had bestowed on Spendlove.

“Ten minutes at least before the supper march, My Lord,” said Hough. “Your Lordship will be kind enough to take in Mrs Hough?”

“Delighted, of course,” replied Hornblower.

Spendlove approached. He was mopping his face with his handkerchief.

“I would enjoy a breath of cooler air, My Lord,” he said. “Perhaps—”

“I’ll come with you,” said Hornblower, not sorry to have an excuse to be rid of Hough’s ponderous company.

They stepped out into the dark garden; so bright had been the candles in the ballroom that they had to tread cautiously at first.

“I trust you are enjoying yourself,” said Hornblower.

“Very much indeed, thank you, My Lord.”

“And your suit is making progress?”

“Of that I am not so sure, My Lord.”

“You have my best wishes in any case.”

“Thank you, My Lord.”

Hornblower’s eyes were more accustomed now to the darkness. He could see the stars now when he looked up. Sirius was visible, resuming once more his eternal chase of Orion across the night sky. The air was warm and still with the cessation of the sea breeze.

Then it happened. Hornblower heard a movement behind him, a rustling of foliage, but before he could pay attention to it hands gripped his arms, a hand came over his mouth. He began to struggle. A sharp, burning pain under his right shoulder-blade made him jump.

“Quiet,” said a voice, a thick, heavy voice. “Or this.”

He felt the pain again. It was a knife point in his back, and he held himself still. The unseen hands began to hustle him away; there were at least three men round him. His nose told him they were sweating—with excitement, perhaps.

“Spendlove?” he said.

“Quiet,” said the voice again.

He was being hustled down the long garden. A momentary sharp cry, instantly stifled, presumably came from Spendlove behind him. Hornblower had difficulty in preserving his balance as he was hurried along, but the arms that held him sustained him; when he stumbled he could feel the pressure of the knife point against his back sharpen into pain as it pierced his clothes. At the far end of the garden they emerged into a narrow path where a darkness loomed up in the night. Hornblower bumped into something that snorted and moved—a mule, apparently.

“Get on,” said the voice beside him.

Hornblower hesitated, and felt the knife against his ribs.

“Get on,” said the voice; someone else was wheeling the mule round again for him to mount.

There were neither stirrups nor saddle. Hornblower put his hands on the withers and hauled himself up astride the mule. He could find no reins, although he heard the chink of a bit. He buried his fingers in the scanty mane. All round him he could hear a bustle as the other mules were mounted. His own mule started with something of a jerk that made him cling wildly to the mane. Someone had mounted the mule ahead and was riding forward with a leading rein attached to his mule. There seemed to be four mules altogether, and some eight men. The mules began to trot, and Hornblower felt himself tossed about precariously on the slippery back of the mule, but there was a man running on each side of him helping to keep him on his perch. A second or two later they slowed down again as the leading mule turned a difficult corner.

“Who are you?” demanded Hornblower, with the first breath that the motion had not shaken out of his body.

The man by his right knee waved something at him, something bright enough to shine in the starlight. It was a cutlass—the machete of the West Indies.

“Quiet,” he said, “or I cut off your leg.”

The next moment the mule broke into a trot again, and Hornblower could have said no more even if he were inclined to do so. Mules and men hurried along a path between great fields of cane, with Hornblower bounding about on the mule’s back. He tried to look up at the stars to see which way they were going, but it was difficult, and they altered course repeatedly, winding about over the countryside. They left the cane behind, and seemed to emerge into open savannah. Then there were trees; then they slowed down for a sharp ascent, broke into a trot again down the other side—the men on foot running tirelessly beside the mules—and climbed again, the mules slipping and plunging on what appeared to be an insecure surface. Twice Hornblower nearly fell off, to be heaved back again by the man beside him. Soon he was atrociously saddle-sore—if the word could be considered appropriate when he was riding bareback—and the ridge of the mule’s spine caused him agony. He was drenched with sweat, his mouth was parched, and he was desperately weary. He grew stupefied with misery, despite the pain he suffered. More than once they splashed across small streams roaring down from the mountains; again they made their way through a belt of trees. Several times they seemed to be threading narrow passes.

Hornblower had no idea how long they had been travelling when they found themselves beside a small river, seemingly placid as it reflected the stars. On the far side faint in the darkness towered a lofty cliff. Here the party halted, and the man beside him tugged at his knee in an obvious invitation to dismount. Hornblower slid down the mule’s side—he had to lean against the animal for a moment when his legs refused to hold him up. When he was able to stand upright and look about him he saw a white face among the dark ones that surrounded him. He could just make out Spendlove, his knees sagging and his head lolling as he stood supported on either side.

“Spendlove!” he said.

There was an agonising moment of waiting before the drooping figure said, “My Lord?” The voice was thick and unnatural.

“Spendlove! Are you wounded?”

“I’m—well—My Lord.”

Someone pushed Hornblower in the back.

“Come. Swim,” said a voice.

“Spendlove!”

Several hands turned Hornblower away and thrust him stumbling down to the water’s edge. It was hopeless to resist; Hornblower could only guess that Spendlove had been stunned by a blow and was only now recovering, his unconscious body having been carried so far by mule.

“Swim,” said the voice, and a hand pressed him forward to the water.

“No!” croaked Hornblower.

The water seemed immeasurably wide and dark. Even while Hornblower struggled at the water’s edge he had a horrible realisation of the indignity he was undergoing, as a Commander-in-Chief, acting like a child in the hands of these people. Somebody led a mule slowly down into the water beside him.

“Hold his tail,” said the voice, and there was the knife in his back again.

He took hold of the mule’s tail and despairingly let himself flop into the water, spreadeagled. For a moment the mule floundered and then struck out; the water, as it closed round Hornblower, seemed hardly colder than the warm air. It was no more than a moment, it seemed, before the mule was plunging up the other bank, and Hornblower found the bottom under his feet and waded out after him, the water streaming from his clothes, the rest of the gang and the animals splashing after him. The hand was back on his shoulder, turning him to one side and urging him along. He heard an odd creaking in front of him and a swaying object struck him on the chest. His hands felt smooth bamboo and some sort of creeper, liana, knotted to it—it was a makeshift rope ladder dangling in front of him.

“Up!” said the voice. “Up!”

He could not—he would not—and there was the knife point at his back again. He stretched his arms up and grasped a rung, feeling desperately with his feet for another.

“Up!”

He began the climb, with the ladder writhing under his feet in the animal fashion rope ladders always display. It was horrible in the darkness, feeling with his feet for each elusive rung in turn, clutching desperately with his hands. His sodden shoes tended to slip on the smooth bamboo. Nor did his hands feel secure on the creeper. Someone else was climbing close after him, and the ladder twined about unpredictably. He knew himself to be swaying pendulum-fashion in the darkness. Up he went, one rung at a time, his hands gripping so convulsively that it was only by a conscious effort that he was able to make each one unclasp in turn and seek a fresh hold. Then the gyrations and swinging grew less. His upward-stretching hand touched earth, or rock. The next moment was not easy; he was unsure of his handhold and he hesitated. He knew himself to be a prodigious height up in the air. Just below him on the ladder he heard a sharp command issued by the man following him, and then a hand above him grasped his wrist and pulled. His feet found the next rung, and there he was, lying gasping on his belly on solid earth. The hand dragged at him again and he crawled on all fours forward to make room for the man behind him. He was almost sobbing; there was no trace left now of the haughty and self-satisfied human who had admired himself in the mirror not so many hours ago.

Other people trod past him.

“My Lord! My Lord!”

That was Spendlove asking for him.

“Spendlove!” he answered, sitting up.

“Are you all right, My Lord?” asked Spendlove, stooping over him.

Was it sense of humour or sense of the ridiculous, was it natural pride or force of habit, which made him take a grip on himself?

“As right as I might expect to be, thank you, after these rather remarkable experiences,” he said. “But you—what happened to you?”

“They hit me on the head,” replied Spendlove, simply.

“Don’t stand there. Sit down,” said Hornblower, and Spendlove collapsed beside him.

“Do you know where we are, My Lord?” he asked.

“Somewhere at the top of a cliff, as far as I can estimate,” said Hornblower.

“But where, My Lord?”

“Somewhere in His Majesty’s loyal colony of Jamaica. More than that I can’t say.”

“It will be dawn soon, I suppose,” said Spendlove, weakly.

“Soon enough.”

Nobody about them was paying them any attention. There was a great deal of chatter going on, in marked contrast with the silence—the almost disciplined silence—which had been preserved during their dash across country. The chatter mingled with the sound of a small waterfall, which he realised he had been hearing ever since his climb. The conversations were in a thick English which Hornblower could hardly understand, but he could be sure that their captors were expressing exultation. He could hear women’s voices, too, while figures paced about, too excited to sit down despite the fatigues of the night.

“I doubt if we’re at the top of the cliff, My Lord, if you’ll pardon me,” said Spendlove.

He pointed upwards. The sky was growing pale, and the stars were fading; vertically over their heads they could see the cliff above them, overhanging them. Looking up, Hornblower could see foliage silhouetted against the sky.

“Strange,” he said. “We must be on some sort of shelf.”

On his right hand the sky was showing a hint of light, of the palest pink, even while on his left it was still dark.

“Facing north-nor’west,” said Spendlove.

The light increased perceptibly; when Hornblower looked to the east again the pink had turned to orange, and there was a hint of green. They seemed immeasurably high up; almost at their feet, it seemed, as they sat, the shelf ended abruptly, and far down below them the shadowy world was taking form, concealed at the moment by a light mist. Hornblower was suddenly conscious of his wet clothes, and shivered.

“That might be the sea,” said Spendlove, pointing.

The sea it was, blue and lovely in the far distance; a broad belt of land, some miles across, extended between the cliff on which they were perched and the edge of the sea; the mist still obscured it. Hornblower rose to his feet, took a step forward, leaning over a low, crude parapet of piled rock; he shrank back before nerving himself to look again. Under his feet there was nothing. They were indeed on a shelf in the face of the cliff. About the height of a frigate’s mainyard, sixty feet or so; vertically below them he could see the small stream he had crossed holding the mule’s tail; the rope ladder still hung down from where he stood to the water’s edge; when, with an effort of will, he forced himself to lean out and look over he could see the mules standing dispiritedly below him in the narrow area between the river and the foot of the cliff; the overhang must be considerable. They were on a shelf in a cliff, undercut through the ages by the river below when in spate. Nothing could reach them from above, and nothing from below if the ladder were to be drawn up. The shelf was perhaps ten yards wide at its widest, and perhaps a hundred yards long. At one end the waterfall he had heard tumbled down the cliff face in a groove it had cut for itself; it splashed against a cluster of gleaming rocks and then leaped out again. The sight of it told him how thirsty he was, and he walked along to it. It was a giddy thing to do, to stand there with the cliff face at one elbow and a vertical drop under the other, with the spray bursting round him, but he could fill his cupped hands with water and drink, and drink again, before splashing his face and head refreshingly. He drew back to find Spendlove waiting for him to finish. Matted in Spendlove’s thick hair and behind his left ear and down his neck was a black clot of blood. Spendlove knelt to drink and to wash, and rose again touching his scalp cautiously.

“They spared me nothing,” he said.

His uniform was spattered with blood, too. At his waist dangled an empty scabbard; his sword was missing, and as they turned back from the waterfall they could see it—it was in the hand of one of their captors, who was standing waiting for them. He was short and square and heavily built, not entirely Negro, possibly as much as half white. He wore a dirty white shirt and loose, ragged blue trousers, with dilapidated buckled shoes on his splay feet.

“Now, Lord,” he said.

He spoke with the Island intonation, with a thickening of the vowels and a slurring of the consonants.

“What do you want?” demanded Hornblower, putting all the rasp into his voice that he could manage.

“Write us a letter,” said the man with the sword.

“A letter? To whom?”

“To the Governor.”

“Asking him to come and hang you?” asked Hornblower.

The man shook his big head.

“No. I want a paper, a paper with a seal on it. A pardon. For us all. With a seal on it.”

“Who are you?”

“Ned Johnson.” The name meant nothing to Hornblower, nor, as a glance showed, did it mean anything to the omniscient Spendlove.

“I sailed with Harkness,” said Johnson.

“Ah!”

That meant something to both the British officers. Harkness was one of the last of the petty pirates. Hardly more than a week ago his sloop, Blossom, had been cut off by the Clorinda off Savannalamar, and her escape to leeward intercepted. Under long-range fire from the frigate she had despairingly run herself aground at the mouth of the Sweet River, and her crew had escaped into the marshes and mangrove swamps of that section of coast, all except her captain, whose body had been found on her deck almost cut in two by a round shot from Clorinda. This was her crew, left leaderless—unless Johnson could be called their leader—and to hunt them down the Governor had called out two battalions of troops as soon as Clorinda beat back to Kingston with the news. It was to cut off their escape by sea that the Governor, at Hornblower’s suggestion, had posted guards at every fishing beach in the whole big island—otherwise the cycle they had already probably followed would be renewed, with the theft of a fishing boat, the capture of a larger craft, and so on until they were a pest again.

“There’s no pardon for pirates,” said Hornblower.

“Yes,” said Johnson. “Write us a letter, and the Governor will give us one.”

He turned aside and from the foot of the cliff at the back of the shelf he picked up something. It was a leatherbound book—the second volume of Waverley, Hornblower saw when it was put in his hands—and Johnson produced a stub of pencil and gave him that as well.

“Write to the Governor,” he said; he opened the book at the beginning and indicated the flyleaf as the place to write on.

“What do you think I would write?” asked Hornblower.

“Ask him for a pardon for us. With his seal on it.”

Apparently Johnson must have heard somewhere, in talk with fellow pirates, of ‘a pardon under the Great Seal’, and the memory had lingered.

“The Governor would never do that.”

“Then I send him your ears. Then I send him your nose,” said Johnson.

That was a horrible thing to hear. Hornblower glanced at Spendlove who had turned white at the words.

“You, the Admiral,” continued Johnson. “You, the Lord, The Governor will do that.”

“I doubt if he would,” said Hornblower.

He conjured up in his mind the picture of fussy old General Sir Augustus Hooper, and tried to imagine the reaction produced by Johnson’s demand. His Excellency would come near to bursting a blood vessel at the thought of granting pardons to two dozen pirates. The home government, when it heard the news, would be intensely annoyed, and without doubt most of the annoyance would be directed at the man whose idiocy in allowing himself to be kidnapped had put everyone in this absurd position. That suggested a question.

“How did you come to be in the garden?” he asked.

“We was waiting for you to go home, but you came out first.”

If they had been intending—

“Stand back!” yelled Johnson.

He leaped backwards with astonishing agility for his bulk, bracing himself, knees bent, body tense, on guard with the sword. Hornblower looked round in astonishment, in time to see Spendlove relax; he had been poising himself for a spring. With that sword in his hand and its point against Johnson’s throat, the position would have been reversed. Some of the others came running up at the cry; one of them had a staff in his hand—a headless pike stave apparently—and thrust it cruelly into Spendlove’s face. Spendlove staggered back, and the staff was whirled up to strike him down. Hornblower leaped in front of him.

“No!” he yelled, and they all stood looking at each other, the drama of the situation ebbing away. Then one of the men came sidling towards Hornblower, cutlass in hand.

“Cut off his ear?” he asked over his shoulder to Johnson.

“No. Not yet. Sit down, you two.” When they hesitated Johnson’s voice rose to a roar. “Sit down!”

Under the menace of the cutlass there was nothing to do but sit down, and they were helpless.

“You write that letter?” asked Johnson.

“Wait a little,” said Hornblower wearily; he could think of nothing else to say in that situation. He was playing for time, hopelessly, like a child at bedtime confronted by stern guardians.

“Let’s have some breakfast,” said Spendlove.

At the far end of the shelf a small fire had been lighted, its smoke clinging in the still dawn in a thin thread to the sloping overhang of the cliff. An iron pot hung from a chain attached to a tripod over the fire, and two women were crouching over it attending to it. Packed against the back wall of the shelf were chests and kegs and barrels. Muskets were ranged in a rack. It occurred to Hornblower that he was in the situation common in popular romances; he was in the pirates’ lair. Perhaps those chests contained untold treasures of pearls and gold. Pirates, like any other seafarers, needed a land base, and these pirates had established one here instead of on some lonely cay. His brig Clement had cleaned out one of those last year.

“You write that letter, Lord,” said Johnson. He poked at Hornblower’s breast with the sword, and the point pierced the thin shirtfront to prick him over the breastbone.

“What is it you want?” asked Hornblower.

“A pardon. With a seal.”

Hornblower studied the swarthy features in front of him. The jig was up for piracy in the Caribbean, he knew. American ships-of-war in the north, French ships-of-war working from the Lesser Antilles, and his own busy squadron based on Jamaica had made the business both unprofitable and dangerous. And this particular band of pirates, the remains of the Harkness gang, were in a more precarious position than any, with the loss of their ship, and with their escape to sea cut off by his precautions. It had been a bold plan, and well executed, to save their necks by kidnapping him. Presumably the plan had been made and executed by this rather stupid-seeming fellow, almost bewildered in appearance, before him. Appearances might be deceitful, or else the desperate need of the situation had stimulated that dull mind into unusual activity.

“You hear me?” said Johnson, offering another prick with the sword, and breaking in upon Hornblower’s train of thought.

“Say you will, My Lord,” muttered Spendlove close to Hornblower’s ear. “Gain time.”

Johnson turned on him, sword pointed at his face.

“Shut that mouth,” he said. Another idea occurred to him, and he glanced round at Hornblower. “You write. Or I prick his eye.”

“I’ll write,” said Hornblower.

Now he sat with the volume of Waverley open at the flyleaf, and the stub of pencil in his hand, while Johnson withdrew for a couple of paces, presumably to allow free play for inspiration. What was he to write? ‘Dear Sir Augustus’? ‘Your Excellency’? That was better. ‘I am held to ransom here along with Spendlove by the survivors of the Harkness gang. Perhaps the bearer of this will explain the conditions. They demand a free pardon in exchange for—’ Hornblower held the pencil poised over the paper debating the next words ‘Our lives’? He shook his head to himself and wrote ‘our freedom.’ He wanted no melodrama. ‘Your Excellency will, of course, be a better judge of the situation than I am. Your ob’d’t servant.’ Hornblower hesitated again, and then he dashed off the ‘Hornblower’ of his signature.

“There you are,” he said, holding out the volume to Johnson, who took it and looked at it curiously, and turned back to the group of a dozen or so of his followers who had been squatting on the ground behind him silently watching the proceedings.

They peered at the writing over Johnson’s shoulder; others came to look as well, and they fell into a chattering debate.

“Not one of them can read, My Lord,” commented Spendlove.

“So it appears.”

The pirates were looking from the writing over to their prisoners and back again; the argument grew more intense. Johnson seemed to be expostulating, or exhorting, and some of the men he addressed drew back shaking their heads.

“It’s a question of who shall carry that note to Kingston,” said Hornblower. “Who shall beard the lion.”

“That fellow has no command over his men,” commented Spendlove. “Harkness would have shot a couple of them by now.”

Johnson returned to them, pointing a dark, stubby finger at the writing.

“What you say here?” he asked.

Hornblower read the note aloud; it did not matter whether he spoke the truth or not, seeing they had no way of knowing. Johnson stared at him, studying his face; Johnson’s own face betrayed more of the bewilderment Hornblower had noticed before. The pirate was facing a situation too complex for him; he was trying to carry out a plan which he had not thought out in all its details beforehand. No one of the pirates was willing to venture into the grip of justice bearing a message of unknown content. Nor, for that matter, would the pirates trust one of their number to go off on such a mission; he might well desert, throwing away the precious message, to try and make his escape on his own. The poor, ragged, shiftless devils and their slatternly women were in a quandary, with no master mind to find a way out for them. Hornblower could have laughed at their predicament, and almost did, until he thought of what this unstable mob could do in a fit of passion to the prisoners in their power. The debate went on furiously, with a solution apparently no nearer.

“Do you think we could get to the ladder, My Lord?” asked Spendlove, and then answered his own question. “No. They’d catch us before we could get away. A pity.”

“We can bear the possibility in mind,” said Hornblower.

One of the women cooking over the fire called out at this moment in a loud, raucous voice, interrupting the debate. Food was being ladled out into wooden bowls. A young mulatto woman, hardly more than a child, in a ragged gown that had once been magnificent, brought a bowl over to them—one bowl, no spoon or fork. They stared at each other, unable to keep from smiling. Then Spendlove produced a penknife from his breeches pocket, and tendered it to his superior after opening it.

“Perhaps it may serve, My Lord,” he said, apologetically, adding, after a glance at the contents of the bowl, “not such a good meal as the supper we missed at the Houghs’s, My Lord.”

Boiled yams and a trifle of boiled salt pork, the former presumably stolen from some slave garden and the latter from one of the hogsheads stored here on the cliff. They ate with difficulty, Hornblower insisting on their using the penknife turn about, juggling with the hot food for which both of them discovered a raging appetite. The pirates and the women were mostly squatting on their heels as they ate. After their first mouthfuls they were beginning to argue again over the use to be made of their prisoners.

Hornblower looked out again from the shelf at the view extended before them.

“That must be the Cockpit Country,” he said.

“No doubt of it, My Lord.”

The Cockpit Country was territory unknown to any white man, an independent republic in the northwest of Jamaica. At the conquest of the island from the Spaniards, a century and a half earlier, the British had found this area already populated by runaway slaves and the survivors of the Indian population. Several attempts to subdue the area had failed disastrously—yellow fever and the appalling difficulty of the country allying themselves with the desperate valour of the defenders—and a treaty had finally been concluded granting independence to the Cockpit Country on the sole condition that the inhabitants should not harbour runaway slaves in future. That treaty had already endured fifty years and seemed likely to endure far longer. The pirates’ lair was on the edge of this area, with the mountains at the back of it.

“And that’s Montego Bay, My Lord,” said Spendlove, pointing.

Hornblower had visited the place in Clorinda last year—a lonely roadstead providing fair anchorage, and shelter for a few fishing boats. He gazed over to the distant blue water with longing. He tried to think of ways of escape, of some method of coming to honourable terms with the pirates, but a night entirely without sleep made his brain sluggish, and now that he had eaten it was more sluggish still. He caught himself nodding and pulled himself up with a jerk. Now that he was in his middle forties the loss of a night’s sleep was a serious matter, especially when the night had been filled with violent and unaccustomed exertion. Spendlove had seen him nod.

“I think you could sleep, My Lord,” he said, gently.

“Perhaps I could.”

He let his body sink to the hard ground. He was pillowless and uncomfortable.

“Here, My Lord,” said Spendlove.

Two hands on his shoulders eased him round, and now he was pillowed on Spendlove’s thigh. The world whirled round him for a moment. There was the whisper of a breeze; the loud debate of the pirates and their women was monotonous in pitch; the waterfall was splashing and gurgling; then he was asleep.

He awoke some time later, with Spendlove touching his shoulder.

“My Lord, My Lord.”

He lifted his head, a little surprised to find where it had been resting; it took him several seconds to recall where he was and how he had come there. Johnson and one or two other pirates were standing before him; in the background one of the women was looking on, in an attitude that conveyed the impression that she had contributed to the conclusion that had evidently been reached.

“We send you to the Governor, Lord,” said Johnson.

Hornblower blinked up at him; although the sun had moved round behind the cliff the sky above was dazzling.

“You,” said Johnson. “You go. We keep him.”

Johnson indicated Spendlove by a gesture.

“What do you mean?” asked Hornblower.

“You go to the Governor and get our pardon,” said Johnson. “You can ask him, and he will give it. He stays here. We can cut off his nose, we can dig out his eyes.”

“Good God Almighty,” said Hornblower.

Johnson, or his advisers—perhaps that woman over there were people of considerable insight after all. They had some conception of honour, of gentlemanly obligations. They had perceived something of the relationship between Hornblower and Spendlove—they may have been guided by the sight of Hornblower sleeping with his head pillowed on Spendlove’s thigh. They knew that Hornblower could never abandon Spendlove to the mercy of his captors, that he would do everything possible to obtain his freedom. Even perhaps—Hornblower’s imagination surged in a great wave over the barrier of his sleepiness—even perhaps to the extent of coming back to share Spendlove’s captivity and fate in the event of not being able to obtain the necessary pardons.

“We send you, Lord,” said Johnson.

The woman in the background said something in a loud voice.

“We send you now,” said Johnson. “Get up.”

Hornblower rose slowly; he would have taken his time in any case in an effort to preserve what dignity was left to him, but he could not have risen swiftly if he had wanted to. His joints were stiff—he could almost hear them crack as he moved. His body ached horribly.

“These two men take you,” said Johnson.

Spendlove had risen to his feet too.

“Are you all right, My Lord?” he asked, anxiously.

“Only stiff and rheumaticy,” replied Hornblower. “But what about you?”

“Oh, I’m all right, My Lord. Please don’t give another thought to me, My Lord.”

That was a very straight glance that Spendlove gave him, a glance that tried to convey a message.

“Not another thought, My Lord,” repeated Spendlove.

He was trying to tell his chief that he should be abandoned, that nothing should be done to ransom him, that he was willing to suffer whatever tortures might be inflicted on him so long as his chief came well out of the business.

“I’ll be thinking about you all the time,” said Hornblower, giving back glance for glance.

“Hurry,” said Johnson.

The rope ladder still dangled down from the lip of the shelf. It was a tricky business to lower himself with his creaking joints over the edge and to find foothold on the slippery bamboo rungs. The ladder swung away under the thrust of his feet as if it was a live thing determined to cast him down; he clung with frantic hands, back downward, forcing himself, against his instincts, to straighten up and allow the ladder to swing back again. Gingerly his feet found foothold again, and he continued his descent. Just as he grew accustomed to the motion of the ladder his rhythm was disturbed by the first of his escort lowering himself upon the ladder above him; he had to cling and wait again before he resumed his downward progress. His feet had hardly gratefully touched ground than first one and then the other of his escorts dropped beside him.

“Goodbye, My Lord. Good luck!”

That was Spendlove calling from above. Hornblower, standing on the very edge of the river, his face towards the cliff, had to bend far backwards to see Spendlove’s head over the parapet and his waving hand, sixty feet above. He waved back as his escorts led the mules to the water’s edge.

Once more it was necessary to swim the river. It was no more than thirty feet across; he could have swum it last night without assistance had he been sure about that in the darkness. Now he let himself flop into the water, clothes and all—alas for that beautiful black dresscoat—and, turning on his back, kicked out with his legs. But his clothes were already wet and were a ponderous burden to him, and he knew a moment of worry before his already weary limbs carried him to the rocky bank. He crawled out, the water streaming from his clothes, unwilling to move even while the mules came plunging up out of the water beside him. Spendlove up above, still leaning over the parapet, waved to him again.

Now it was a question of mounting a mule again. His wet clothes weighed upon him like lead. He had to struggle up—the animal’s wet hide was slippery—and as soon as he settled himself astride he realised that he was horribly saddlesore from the night before, and the raw surfaces caused him agony. He had to brace himself to endure it; it was dreadfully painful as his mount plunged about making his way over the irregular surface. From the river they made an abrupt ascent into the mountains. They were retracing the path they had taken the night before; hardly a path, hardly a track. They picked their way up a steep gully, down the other side, up again. They splashed across little torrents, and wound their way among trees. Hornblower was numb both in body and mind by now; his mule was weary and by no means as sure of foot as a mule should be; stumbling more than once so that only by frantic efforts could he retain his seat. The sun was sinking towards the west as they jolted on, downhill at last. Passage through a final belt of trees brought them into open country upon which the sun blazed in tropical glory. This was savannah country, hardly rocky at all; there were cattle to be seen in the distance, and, beyond, a great sea of green—the vast sugar-cane fields of Jamaica stretching as far as the eye could see. Half a mile farther they reached a well-defined track, and there his escorts checked their mounts.

“Now you can go on,” said one of them, pointing along the path winding towards the distant cane.

It was a second or two before Hornblower’s stupefied brain could grasp the fact that they were turning him loose.

“That way?” he asked, unnecessarily.

“Yes,” said his escort.

The two men turned their mules; Hornblower had to struggle with his, who disliked the separation. One of the escorts struck the brute on the rump, sending him down the path in a jerky trot acutely painful to Hornblower as he sought to retain his seat. Soon the mule eased to a leg-weary walk, and Hornblower was content to sit idly as it crawled along down the path; the sun was now clouded over and it was not long before, heralded by a brisk wind, a blinding rain began to fall, blotting out the landscape and slowing the mule even more on the slippery surface. Hornblower sat exhausted on the sharp spine of the animal; so heavy was the rain that he found it difficult to breathe as it poured upon his face.

Gradually the roaring rain ceased; the sky, while it remained overcast above him, opened to the west and admitted a gleam of the setting sun, so that the landscape on his left was made glorious with a rainbow which Hornblower hardly noted. Here was the first cane-field; the track he was following became here a rough and narrow roadway through the cane, deeply rutted by cartwheels. The mule plodded on, eternally, through the cane. Now the road crossed another, and the mule pulled up at the crossroads. Before Hornblower could rouse himself to urge the mule onwards he heard a shout to his right. Far down the road he saw a group of horsemen illuminated against the sunset. With an urgent drumming of hoofs they came galloping towards him, and reined up at his side—a white man followed by two coloured men.

“It’s Lord Hornblower, isn’t it?” asked the white man—a young fellow; Hornblower noticed dully that, although mounted, he was still in full-dress clothes with his ruffled neckcloth all awry and bedraggled.

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

“Thank God you’re safe, sir,” said the young man. “Are you hurt? Are you wounded, My Lord?”

“No,” said Hornblower, swaying with fatigue on the back of the mule.

The young man turned to one of his coloured companions and issued rapid orders, and the coloured man wheeled his horse round and went galloping full pelt down the road.

“The whole island has been turned out to seek for you, My Lord,” said the young man. “What happened to you? We have searched for you all day.”

It would never do for an Admiral, a Commander-in-Chief, to betray unmanly weakness. Hornblower made himself stiffen his spine.

“I was kidnapped by pirates,” he said. He tried to speak nonchalantly, as if that was something that could happen to anyone any day, but it was difficult. His voice was only a hoarse croak. “I must go at once to the Governor. Where is His Excellency?”

“He must be at Government House, I fancy,” said the young man. “No more than thirty miles away.”

Thirty miles! Hornblower felt as if he could not ride another thirty yards.

“Very well,” he said, stiffly. “I must go there.”

“The Hough house is only two miles down the road here, My Lord,” said the young man. “Your carriage is still there, I believe. I have already sent a messenger.”

“We’ll go there first, then,” said Hornblower, as indifferently as he could manage.

A word from the white man brought the other coloured man from his horse, and Hornblower slid ungracefully from the mule. It was an enormous effort to get his foot up into the stirrup; the coloured man had to help him heave his right leg over. He had hardly gathered the reins in his hands—he had not yet discovered which was which—when the white man put his horse into a trot and Hornblower’s mount followed him. It was torture to bump about in the saddle.

“My name is Colston,” said the white man, checking his horse so that Hornblower came up alongside him. “I had the honour of being presented to Your Lordship at the ball last night.”

“Of course,” said Hornblower. “Tell me what happened there.”

“You were missed, My Lord, after the supper march had been kept waiting for you to head it with Mrs Hough. You and your secretary, Mr—Mr—”

“Spendlove,” said Hornblower.

“Yes, My Lord. At first it was thought that some urgent business was demanding your attention. It was not for an hour or two, I suppose, that your flag-lieutenant and Mr. Hough could agree that you had been spirited away. There was great distress among the company, My Lord.”

“Yes?”

“Then the alarm was given. All the gentlemen present rode out in search for you. The militia was called out at dawn. The whole countryside is being patrolled. I expect the Highland regiment is in full march for here at this moment.”

“Indeed?” said Hornblower. A thousand infantrymen were making a forced march of thirty miles on his account; a thousand horsemen were scouring the island.

Hoofbeats sounded in front of them. Two horsemen approached in the gathering darkness; Hornblower could just recognise Hough and the messenger.

“Thank God, My Lord,” said Hough. “What happened?”

Hornblower was tempted to answer, ‘Mr Colston will tell you’, but he made himself make a more sensible reply. Hough uttered the expected platitudes.

“I must go on to the Governor at once,” said Hornblower. “There is Spendlove to think of.”

“Spendlove, My Lord? Oh, yes, of course, your secretary.”

“He is still in the hands of the pirates,” said Hornblower.

“Indeed, My Lord?” replied Hough.

No one seemed to have a care about Spendlove, except Lucy Hough, presumably.

Here was the house and the courtyard; lights were gleaming in every window.

“Please come in, My Lord,” said Hough. “Your Lordship must be in need of refreshment.”

He had eaten yams and salt pork some time that morning; he felt no hunger now.

“I must go on to Government House,” he said. “I can waste no time.”

“If Your Lordship insists—”

“Yes,” said Hornblower.

“I will go and have the horses put to, then, My Lord.”

Hornblower found himself alone in the brightly-lit sitting-room. He felt that if he threw himself into one of the vast chairs there he would never get up again.

“My Lord! My Lord!”

It was Lucy Hough fluttering into the room, her skirts flying with her haste. He would have to tell her about Spendlove.

“Oh, you’re safe! You’re safe!”

What was this? The girl had flung herself on her knees before him. She had one of his hands in both hers, and was kissing it frantically. He drew back, he tried to snatch his hand away, but she clung on to it, and followed him on her knees, still kissing it.

“Miss Lucy!”

“I care for nothing as long as you’re safe!” she said, looking up at him and still clasping his hand; tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I’ve been through torment today. You’re not hurt? Tell me! Speak to me!”

This was horrible. She was pressing her lips, her cheek, against his hand again.

“Miss Lucy! Please! Compose yourself!”

How could a girl of seventeen act like this towards a man of forty-five? Was she not enamoured of Spendlove? But perhaps that was the person she was thinking about.

“I will see that Mr. Spendlove is safe,” he said.

“Mr. Spendlove? I hope he’s safe. But it’s you—you—you—”

“Miss Lucy! You must not say these things! Stand up, please, I beg you!”

Somehow he got her to her feet.

“I couldn’t bear it!” she said. “I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you!”

“There, there!” said Hornblower, as soothingly as he knew how.

“The carriage will be ready in two minutes, My Lord,” said Hough’s voice from the door. “A glass of wine and a bite before you start?”

Hough came in with a smile.

“Thank you, sir,” said Hornblower, struggling with embarrassment.

“This child has been in a rare way since this morning,” said Hough, indulgently. “These young people—She was the only person in the island, I fancy, who gave a thought to the secretary as well as to the Commander-in-Chief.”

“Er—yes. These young people,” said Hornblower.

The butler entered with a tray at that moment.

“Pour His Lordship a glass of wine, Lucy, my dear,” said Hough, and then to Hornblower, “Mrs Hough has been considerably prostrated, but she will be down in a moment.”

“Please do not discommode her, I beg of you,” said Hornblower. His hand was shaking as he reached for the glass. Hough took up carving knife and fork and set about carving the cold chicken.

“Excuse me, please,” said Lucy.

She turned and ran from the room as quickly as she had entered it, sobbing wildly.

“I had no idea the attachment was so strong,” said Hough.

“Nor had I,” said Hornblower. He had gulped down the whole glass of wine in his agitation. He addressed himself to the cold chicken with all the calm he could muster.

“The carriage is at the door, sir,” announced the butler.

“I’ll take these with me,” said Hornblower, a slice of bread in one hand and a chicken wing in the other. “Would it be troubling you too much to ask you to send a messenger ahead of me to warn His Excellency of my coming?”

“That has already been done, My Lord,” answered Hough. “And I have sent out messengers to inform the patrols that you are safe.”

Hornblower sank into the cushioned ease of the carriage. The incident with Lucy had at least had the effect of temporarily driving all thought of fatigue from his mind. Now he could lean back and relax; it was five minutes before he remembered the bread and chicken in his hands and set himself wearily to eat them. The long drive was not particularly restful, for there were continual interruptions. Patrols who had not heard that he was safe stopped the carriage. Ten miles down the road they encountered the Highland battalion encamped at the roadside and the colonel insisted on coming and paying his respects to the Naval Commander-in-Chief and congratulating him. Farther on a galloping horse reined up beside the carriage; it was Gerard. The light of the carriage lamp revealed that he had ridden his horse into a lather. Hornblower had to listen to him say “Thank God, you are safe, My Lord”—everyone used those same words—and explain to him what had happened. Gerard abandoned his horse at the first opportunity and got into the carriage beside Hornblower. He was full of self-reproach at having allowed this to happen to his Chief—Hornblower rather resented the implication that he was incapable of looking after himself even though the event seemed to prove it—and at not having rescued him.

“We tried to use the bloodhounds they track runaway slaves with, My Lord, but they were of no use.”

“Naturally, since I was on muleback,” said Hornblower. “In any case, the scent must have been several hours old. Now forget the past and let me think about the future.”

“We’ll have those pirates dangling on ropes before two days are up, My Lord.”

“Indeed? And what about Spendlove?”

“Oh—er. Yes, of course, My Lord.”

Spendlove was very much of an afterthought with everyone, even with Gerard who was his friend. But to Gerard must be given the credit at least for appreciating Hornblower’s difficulty the moment it was pointed out to him.

“We can’t let anything happen to him, of course, My Lord.”

“And how do we prevent it? Do we grant those pardons—do we persuade His Excellency to grant them?”

“Well, My Lord—”

“There’s nothing I would not do to set Spendlove free,” said Hornblower. “Do you understand that? Nothing!”

Hornblower caught himself setting his jaw in grim determination; his ineradicable tendency to self-analysis revealed him to himself. He was cynically surprised at his own flow of emotion. Ferocity and tenderness intermingled; let those pirates touch one hair of Spendlove’s head and—but how was he to prevent it? How to free Spendlove from men who knew that their lives, their actual lives and not merely their fortunes, depended on keeping him prisoner? How could he ever live with himself if anything were to happen to Spendlove? If the worst came to the worst he would have to go back to the pirates and yield himself up to them, as that Roman—Regulus—returned to death at the hands of the Carthaginians; and the worst seemed likely to come to the worst.

“Government House, My Lord,” said Gerard, breaking in upon this train of nightmare thoughts.

Sentries at the gates, sentries at the door. A brightly-lit entrance-hall, where aides-de-camp looked at him curiously, curse them. So did Gerard. He was ushered through into an inner room, where after only a moment another door opened to admit His Excellency, and the escorting aide-de-camp discreetly retired. His Excellency was an angry man, angry as a man can only be who had been badly scared.

“Now, what is all this, My Lord?”

There was none of the usual deference displayed towards the man who had attained a peerage, the man of legendary fame. Hooper was a full General, far above a mere Rear-Admiral; moreover, as Governor he was absolute ruler throughout this island. His red face and bulging blue eyes—as well as the rage he was displaying—seemed to confirm the rumour that he was a grandson of the royal blood. Hornblower explained briefly and quietly what had happened; his fatigue—if not his common sense—prevented an angry reply.

“Do you realise the cost of all this, My Lord?” blared Hooper. “Every white man who can sit a horse is out. My last reserve—the Highlanders—are bivouacked at the roadside. What that will mean in malaria and yellow fever I do not dare guess. For two weeks every man of the garrison except for them has been out guarding fishing boats and watching beaches at your request. The sick-lists are enormous. And now this!”

“My instructions, and I believe Your Excellency’s as well, laid the greatest stress on the suppression of piracy, sir.”

“I don’t need any whipper-snapper jumped up Rear-Admiral to interpret my instructions,” roared Hooper. “What sort of bargain did you make with these pirates of yours?”

There it was. It was not an easy thing to explain to a man in this mood.

“I made no actual bargain, Your Excellency.”

“Hard to believe you had that much sense.”

“But my honour is pledged.”

“Your honour pledged? To whom? The pirates?”

“No, Your Excellency. To my secretary, Spendlove.”

“What was the pledge?”

“He was retained as a hostage when I was set free.”

“What did you promise him?”

What? He had said something about thinking about him.

“I made no verbal promise, Your Excellency. But one was implied, undoubtedly.”

“What was implied?”

“That I should set him free.”

“And how did you think you could do that?”

Nothing for it but to take the bull by the horns.

“I was released in order that I might solicit from Your Excellency pardons under seal for the pirates.”

“Pardons! Par—” Hooper could not even finish the word a second time. He could only gobble like a turkey for several seconds before with a gulp he was able to continue. “Are you insane, My Lord?”

“That was why I was released. And that is why Spendlove is still retained.”

“Then this Spendlove must take his chance.”

“Your Excellency!”

“Do you think I could grant pardons to a gang of pirates? What d’ye mean? So that they can live like lords on their booty? Rolling in coaches round the island? A fine way that would be of suppressing piracy! D’ye want the whole West Indies in a turmoil? Have you lost your senses?”

The effect of this speech was in no way modified by the fact that Hornblower had guessed long before, that Hooper would argue exactly along this line.

“I fully see the difficulty of the situation, Your Excellency.”

“I’m glad you do. You know the hiding-place of these pirates?”

“Yes, Your Excellency. It is a very secure place.”

“No matter. It can be reduced, of course. A few hangings will quiet this island down again.”

What in the world was there that he could do or could say? The sentence he framed in his mind was patently absurd to him even before he uttered it.

“I shall have to go back there before you take any steps, Your Excellency.”

“Go back there?” Hooper’s eyes almost came out of their sockets as the implications of what Hornblower was saying dawned upon him. “What new foolery do you have in mind?”

“I must go back and join Spendlove if Your Excellency does not see fit to grant the pardons.”

“Rubbish! I can grant no pardons. I cannot. I will not.”

“Then I have no alternative, Your Excellency.”

“Rubbish, I said. Rubbish! You made no promise. You said yourself that you gave no pledge.”

“I am the judge of that, Your Excellency.”

“You’re in no condition to judge anything at present, if ever you were. Can you imagine for one moment I’ll let you tie my hands like this?”

“No one regrets the necessity more than I do, Your Excellency.”

“Necessity? Are you dictating to me? I’ll have you know that I’m your superior officer as well as Governor of this island. One more word and you’ll be under arrest, My Lord. Let’s hear no more of this nonsense.”

“Your Excellency—”

“Not one more word, I said. This Spendlove is one of the King’s servants. He must run the risks of his position, even though he is only a secretary.”

“But—”

“I order you to keep silence, My Lord. You have fair warning. Tomorrow when you’re rested we can plan to smoke out this wasps’ nest.”

Hornblower himself checked the protest that still rose to his lips. Hooper meant what he said when he threatened arrest. The massive discipline that permeated the armed forces of the Crown had Hornblower in its grip as surely as if he were the least seaman. To disobey an order was hopeless from the start. The irresistible force of his own conscience might be driving him forward, but here he was up against the immovable barrier of discipline. Tomorrow? Tomorrow was another day.

“Very well, Your Excellency.”

“A night’s rest will do you all the good in the world, My Lord. Perhaps it would be best if you slept here. I will give the necessary orders. If you instruct your flag-lieutenant as to the fresh clothes you will need I will send to Admiralty House for them to be ready for you in the morning.”

Clothes? Hornblower looked down at himself. He had forgotten entirely that he was wearing his black full-dress. One glance was enough to tell him that never again could he wear that suit. Now he could guess about the rest of his appearance. He knew that his haggard cheeks must be sprouting a bristly beard, his neckcloth in wild disorder. No wonder that people had looked at him curiously in the anteroom.

“Your Excellency is very kind,” he said.

There was no harm in being formally polite in the face of the temporarily inevitable. There had been that in Hooper’s tone which told him that the invitation might as well have been an order, that he was as much a prisoner in Government House as if Hooper had actually carried out his threat of putting him under arrest. It was best to yield gracefully since he had to yield for the moment at least. Tomorrow was another day.

“Allow me to conduct you to your room, My Lord,” said Hooper.

The mirror in the bedroom confirmed his worst fears regarding his appearance. The bed, with its enormous mosquito net, was wide and inviting. His aching joints clamoured that he should allow himself to fall across that bed and repose himself; his weary brain demanded that he should sink into oblivion, forget his troubles in sleep as a drunkard might forget them in liquor. It was a relaxation to soap himself in a tepid bath, despite the smarting protests of the raw places on his body. And yet, bathed and relaxed, with one of His Excellency’s nightshirts flapping round his knees, he could not give way to his weaknesses. His innermost ego refused to recognise them. He found himself hobbling barefooted about the room. He had no quarterdeck to pace; the candle-heated tropical air of the bedroom was not as conducive to inspiration as was a fresh sea breeze; mosquitoes buzzed about him, stinging his neck and his bare legs and distracting him. It was one of those dreadful nights; sometimes he relaxed so far as to sit on a chair, but within a few seconds a new train of thought brought him to his feet again, to limp up and down.

It was maddening that he could not keep his thoughts concentrated on the problem of Spendlove. He felt a contempt for himself that he should find his mind deserting his devoted secretary; there was a rival train of thought which was frequently successful in holding his attention. He knew, before the night was over, just how he would deal with the pirates’ lair if his hands were free; he even knew satisfaction in recapitulating his plans, only to find the satisfaction replaced by sick despair at the thought of Spendlove in the pirates’ hands. There were moments when his stomach turned over as he remembered Johnson’s threat to dig out Spendlove’s eyes.

Weariness took him by surprise in the end; he had sat down and rested his head on his hand, and then awakened with a start as he fell forward in his chair. The awakening was not complete enough; unconscious of what he was doing he settled himself back in his chair and slept in that fashion, the vast, comfortable bed untenanted, until a knocking at his door roused him to blink about him wondering where he was before bracing himself to make it seem as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to sleep in a chair when a bed was available.

It was Giles who came in, bearing clean linen and a uniform and razors; the business of shaving and of dressing carefully served to steady him and kept him from thinking too furiously about the problem he would have to solve in the next few minutes.

“His Excellency would be glad if His Lordship would take breakfast with him.”

That was a message conveyed through the door to Giles; the invitation must be accepted, of course, as it was the equivalent of a royal command. Hooper, apparently, was partial to a steak for breakfast; a silver dish of steak and onions was brought in almost as soon as Hornblower had uttered his formal good morning. Hooper looked at Hornblower oddly when he answered the butler’s enquiry with a request for papaya and a boiled egg—that was a bad start, for it confirmed Hooper in his opinions of Hornblower’s eccentricity that he should have these outlandish Frenchified notions about breakfast. Years of living on shore had not yet dulled the appetite for fresh eggs in their shells which Hornblower had acquired during decades at sea. Hooper daubed mustard on his steak and set about it with appetite.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough, thank you, Your Excellency.”

Hooper’s abandonment of the formal ‘My Lord’ was a not too subtle indication that he was willing to forget last night’s discussion and to act magnanimously as if Hornblower was a normal person with only a temporary lapse on his record.

“We’ll leave business until we’ve eaten.”

“As you wish, Your Excellency.”

But not even a Governor can be sure of his future. There was a bustle at the door, and a whole group of people came hurrying in, not merely the butler but two aides-de-camp and Gerard and—and—who was that? Pale and ragged and weary, almost unable to stand on tottering legs.

“Spendlove!” said Hornblower, his spoon clattering to the floor as he rose and hurried to him.

Hornblower clasped his hand, grinning with delight. Perhaps there had never been a moment in his life which had held so much sheer pleasure for him.

“Spendlove!” He could only repeat the name at first.

“Is this the return of the prodigal?” asked Hooper from the table.

Hornblower remembered his manners.

“Your Excellency,” he said, “may I take it upon myself to present my secretary, Mr. Erasmus Spendlove?”

“Glad to see you, young man. Take a seat at the table. Bring Mr. Spendlove some food! He looks as if a glass of wine would not come amiss. Bring the decanter and a glass.”

“You’re not wounded?” asked Hornblower. “You’re not hurt?”

“No, My Lord,” said Spendlove, extending his legs cautiously under the table. “It is only that seventy miles on horseback have stiffened my unaccustomed limbs.”

“Seventy miles?” asked Hooper. “From where?”

“Montego Bay, Your Excellency.”

“Then you must have escaped in the night?”

“At nightfall, Your Excellency.”

“But what did you do, man?” demanded Hornblower. “How did you get away?”

“I jumped, My Lord. Into the water.”

“Into the water?”

“Yes, My Lord. There was eight feet of water in the river at the foot of the cliff; enough to break my fall from any height.”

“So there was. But—but—in the dark?”

“That was easy, My Lord. I looked over the parapet during the day. I did when I said goodbye to Your Lordship. I marked the spot and I measured the distance with my eye.”

“And then?”

“And then I jumped when it was fully dark, and raining hard.”

“What were the pirates doing?” asked Hooper.

“They were taking shelter, Your Excellency. They were paying no attention to me, thinking I was safe enough there, with the ladder pulled up.”

“And so—?”

“So I took a run, Your Excellency, and jumped the parapet, as I said, and came down feet first into the water.”

“Unhurt?”

“Unhurt, Your Excellency.”

Hornblower’s vivid imagination conjured up everything about the feat, the half-dozen strides through the dark and the roaring rain, the leap, the endless fall. He felt the hair at the back of his neck lifting.

“A most commendable deed,” commented Hooper.

“Nothing for a desperate man, Your Excellency.”

“Perhaps not. And then? After you were in the water? Were you pursued?”

“As far as I can tell, Your Excellency, I was not. Perhaps it was some time before they noticed my absence. Even then they would have to let down the ladder and climb down it. I heard nothing as I made off.”

“Which way did you go?” asked Hornblower.

“I kept to the river, My Lord, making my way downstream. It reaches the sea at Montego Bay, as we decided, if you remember, My Lord, when we were making our first observations.”

“Was it an easy journey?” asked Hornblower. Something was stirring in his mind, demanding his attention despite the strong emotions he was experiencing.

“Not easy in the dark, My Lord. There were rapids in places, and the boulders were slippery. I fancy the main pass is narrow, although I could not see it.”

“And at Montego Bay?” asked Hooper.

“There was the guard over the fishing boats, a half-company of the West Indian Regiment, Your Excellency. I had their officer awakened, and he found me a horse, and I took the road through Cambridge and Ipswich.”

“You got yourself remounts on the way?”

“I claimed I was on a mission of the greatest importance, Your Excellency.”

“You made good time, even then.”

“The patrol at Mandeville told me His Lordship was on his way to Your Excellency, and so I rode straight to Government House.”

“Very sensible.”

To the picture in Hornblower’s mind of the leap In the darkness were now added others, of a nightmare journey down the river, falling over slippery boulders, rumbling into unexpected pools, struggling along invisible banks; then the endless, weary ride.

“I shall represent your conduct to the Lords Commissioners, Mr. Spendlove,” he said, formally.

“I must thank Your Lordship.”

“And I shall represent it to the Secretary of State,” added Hooper.

“Your Excellency is too kind.”

To Hornblower it was not the least of Spendlove’s achievements (guessed at from a glance at his plate) that Spendlove had contrived somehow to gulp down a whole plateful of steak and onions while making his report. The man must have learned to dispense with chewing.

“Enough of compliments,” said Hooper, mopping up his gravy with a piece of bread. “Now we have to destroy these pirates. This lair of theirs—you say it is strong?”

Hornblower let Spendlove answer.

“Impregnable to direct assault, Your Excellency.”

“M’m. D’ye think they’ll make a stand there?”

For the past several minutes Hornblower had been debating this point with himself. Those leaderless men, dazed now by the complete failure of their scheme—what would they do?

“They could scatter all over the island, Your Excellency,” said Spendlove.

“So they could. Then I’ll have to hunt them down. Patrols on every road, movable columns in the mountains. And the sick-list is high already.”

Troops exposed to the weather and the night air for long in the West Indies died like flies, and it might well take weeks to run the outlaws down.

“Maybe they’ll scatter,” said Hornblower, and then he committed himself, “but in my opinion, Your Excellency, they will not.”

Hooper looked at him sharply.

“You think not?”

“I think not, Your Excellency.”

That gang had been despairing as well as desperate when he had been among them. There was something childlike about them, leaderless as they were. On the cliff they had shelter, food—they had a home, if the expression could be tolerated. They would not readily leave it.

“And you say this place is impregnable? It would mean a long siege?”

“I might reduce them quickly with a naval force, Your Excellency, if Your Excellency would give me leave to try.”

“Your Lordship is welcome to try anything that will save lives.”

Hooper was looking at him curiously.

“Then I’ll make my arrangements,” said Hornblower.

“You’ll go round to Montego Bay by sea?”

“Yes.”

Hornblower restrained himself from saying ‘of course’.

Soldiers always found it hard to realise the convenience of the sea for rapid and secret movements.

“I’ll maintain my patrols in case they bolt while you smoke out the nest,” said Hooper.

“I think Your Excellency would be taking a wise precaution in doing so. I trust my plan will not take long in execution. With Your Excellency’s leave—”

Hornblower rose from the table.

“You’re going now?”

“Every hour is of importance, Your Excellency.”

Hooper was looking at him more inquisitively than ever.

“The Navy displays its notorious reserve,” he said. “Oh, very well then. Order His Lordship’s carriage. You have my leave to try, My Lord. Report to me by courier.”

There they were, in the warm morning air, sitting, the three of them, Hornblower, Spendlove, and Gerard, in the carriage.

“The dockyard,” ordered Hornblower briefly. He turned to Spendlove. “From the dockyard you will go on board Clorinda and convey my order to Captain Fell to make ready for sea. I shall be hoisting my flag within an hour. Then it is my order to you that you get yourself some rest.”

“Aye aye, My Lord.”

At the dockyard the Captain-Superintendent did his best not to appear surprised at an unheralded visit from his Admiral who by the last news had been kidnapped.

“I want a boat mortar, Holmes,” said Hornblower, brushing aside the expressions of pleased surprise.

“A boat mortar, My Lord? Y-yes, My Lord. There’s one in store, I know.”

“It’s to go on board Clorinda at once. Now, there are shells for it?”

“Yes, My Lord. Uncharged, of course.”

“I’ll have Clorinda’s gunner charge ‘em while we’re under way. Twenty pounds apiece, I believe. Send two hundred, with the fuses.”

“Aye aye, My Lord.”

“And I want a punt. Two punts. I’ve seen your hands using ‘em for caulking and breaming. Twenty foot, are they?”

“Twenty-two foot, My Lord,” answered Holmes; he was glad that he could answer this question while his Admiral had not insisted on an answer regarding so obscure a matter as the weight of boat-mortar shells.

“I’ll have two, as I said. Send them round to be hove on deck.”

“Aye aye, My Lord.”

Captain Sir Thomas Fell had his best uniform on to greet his Admiral.

“I received your order, My Lord,” he said, as the twittering of the pipes died away in a last wail.

“Very well, Sir Thomas. I want to be under way the moment the stores I have ordered are on board. You can warp your ship out. We are going to Montego Bay to deal with pirates.”

“Aye aye, My Lord.”

Fell did his best not to look askance at the two filthy punts that he was expected to heave on to his spotless deck—they were only the floating stages used in the dockyard for work on ships’ sides—and the two tons of greasy mortar shells for which he had to find space were no better. He was not too pleased when he was ordered to tell off the greater part of his ship’s company—two hundred and forty men—and all his marine detachment for a landing party. The hands were naturally delighted with the prospect of a change of routine and the possibility of action. The fact that the gunner was weighing out gunpowder and putting two pounds apiece in the shells, a glimpse of the armourer going round with the Admiral on an inspection of the boarding-pikes, the sight of the boat mortar, squat and ugly, crouching on its bed at the break, of the forecastle, all excited them. It was a pleasure to thrash along to the westward, under every stitch of canvas, leaving Portland Point abeam, rounding Negril Point at sunset, catching some fortunate puffs of the sea breeze which enabled them to cheat the trade wind, ghosting along in the tropical darkness with the lead at work in the chains, and anchoring with the dawn among the shoals of Montego Bay, the green mountains of Jamaica all fiery with the rising sun.

Hornblower was on deck to see it; he had been awake since midnight, having slept since sunset—two almost sleepless nights had disordered his habits—and he was already pacing the quarterdeck as the excited men were formed up in the waist. He kept a sharp eye on the preparations. That boat mortar weighed no more than four hundred pounds, a mere trifle for the yard-arm tackle to lower down into the punt alongside. The musketmen were put through an inspection of their equipment; it was puzzling to the crew that there were pikemen, axemen, and even malletmen and crowbarmen as well. As the sun climbed higher and blazed down hotter the men began to file down into the boats.

“Gig’s alongside, My Lord,” said Gerard.

“Very well.”

On shore Hornblower returned the salute of the astonished subaltern commanding the detachment of the West Indian Regiment on guard over the boats—he had turned out his men apparently expecting nothing less than a French invasion—and dismissed him. Then he ran a final glance over the rigid lines of the marine detachment, scarlet tunics and white cross-belts and all. They would not be nearly as tidy by the end of the day.

“You can make a start, captain,” he said. “Keep me informed, Mr. Spendlove, if you please.”

“Aye aye, My Lord.”

With Spendlove as guide the marines marched forward; they were the advanced guard to secure the main body from surprise. It was time to give orders to Clorinda’s first-lieutenant.

“Now, Mr. Sefton, we can move.”

The little river had a little bar at its mouth, but the two punts carrying the mortar and the ammunition had been floated in round it. For a mile there was even a track beside the water, and progress was rapid as they dragged the punts along, while the vegetation closed in round them. The shade was gratifying when they first entered into it, but they found it breathless, damp, stifling, as they progressed farther in. Mosquitoes stung with venomous determination. Men slipped and fell on the treacherous mud-banks, splashing prodigiously. Then they reached the first stretch of shallows, where the river came bubbling down a long perceptible slope between steep banks under the light filtering in through the trees.

At least they had saved a mile and more by water carriage even this far. Hornblower studied the grounded punts, the soil and the trees. This was what he had been thinking about; it was worth making the experiment before putting the men to the toil of carrying the mortar up by brute force.

“We’ll try a dam here, Mr. Sefton, if you please.”

“Aye aye, My Lord. Axemen! Pikemen! Malletmen!”

The men were still in high spirits; it called for exertion on the part of the petty officers to restrain their exuberance. A line of pikes driven head downward where the soil was soft enough to receive them formed the first framework of the dam. Axemen felled small trees with a childish delight in destruction. Crowbarmen levered at stumps and rocks. A small avalanche came tumbling down into the river bed. The water swirled about the trash; already there was sufficient obstruction to hold it. Hornblower saw the level rise before his very eyes.

“More rocks here!” roared Sefton.

“Keep your eye on those punts, Mr. Sefton,” said Hornblower—the clumsy craft were already afloat again.

Felled trees and rocks extended, heightened, and strengthened the dam. There was water spouting through the interstices, but not as much as was being held back.

“Get the punts upstream,” ordered Hornblower.

Four hundred willing hands had achieved much; the water was banked up sufficient to float the punts two-thirds of the way up the shallows.

“Another dam, I think, Mr. Sefton, if you please.”

Already they had learned much about the construction of temporary dams. The stream bed was choked in a twinkling, it seemed. Splashing knee-deep in water the men dragged the punts higher still. They grounded momentarily, but a final heave ran them over the last of the shallows into a reach where they floated with ease.

“Excellent, Mr. Sefton.”

That was a clear gain of a quarter of a mile before the next shallows.

As they were preparing to work on the next dam the flat report of a musket shot came echoing back to them in the heated air, followed by half a dozen more; it was several minutes before they heard the explanation, brought back by a breathless messenger.

“Captain Seymour reports, sir. We was fired on by someone up there, sir. Saw ‘im in the trees, sir, but ‘e got away.”

“Very well.”

So the pirates had posted a lookout downstream. Now they knew that a force was advancing against them. Only time would show what they would do next; meanwhile the punts were afloat again and it was time to push on. The river curved back and forth, washing at the foot of vertical banks, preserving, for a time, miraculously, enough depth of water to float the punts at the expense of occasionally dragging them up slight rapids. Now it began to seem to Hornblower as if he had spent days on this labour, in the blinding patches of sunlight and the dark stretches of shade, with the river swirling round his knees, and his feet slipping on the rocks. At the next dam he was tempted to sit and allow the sweat to stream down him. He had hardly done so when another messenger arrived from the advanced guard.

“Captain Seymour reporting, sir. ‘E says to say the pirates ‘ave gorn to ground, sir. They’re in a cave, sir, right up in the cliff.”

“How far ahead of here?”

“Oh, not so very fur, sir.”

Hornblower could have expected no better answer, he realised.

“They was shooting at us, sir,” supplemented the messenger.

That defined the distance better, for they had heard no firing for a long time; the pirates’ lair must be farther than the sound could carry.

“Very well. Mr. Sefton, carry on, if you please. I’m going ahead. Come along, Gerard.”

He set himself to climb and scramble along the river bank. On his left hand as he progressed he noticed the bank was growing steeper and loftier. Now it was really a cliff. Another stretch of rapids at a corner, and then he opened up a fresh vista. There it was, just as he remembered it, the lofty, overhanging cliff with the waterfall tumbling down it to join the river at its foot, and the long horizontal seam half way up the cliff; open grassland with a few trees on his right, and even the little group of mules on the narrow stretch of grass between, the cliff and the river. Red-coated marines were strung out over the grassland, in a wide semicircle whose centre was the cave.

Hornblower forgot his sweating fatigue and strode hastily, forward to where he could see Seymour standing among men gazing up at the cliff, Spendlove at his side. They came to meet him and saluted.

“There they are, My Lord,” said Seymour. “They took a few shots at us when we arrived.”

“Thank you, captain. How do you like the look of the place now, Spendlove?”

“As much as before, My Lord, but no more.”

“Spendlove’s Leap,” said Hornblower.

He was pressing forward along the river bank towards the cave, staring upwards.

“Have a care, My Lord,” said Spendlove, urgently.

A moment after he had spoken something whistled sharply just above Hornblower’s head; a puff of smoke appeared over the parapet of the cave, and a sharp ringing report came echoing from the cliff face. Then, made tiny by the distance, doll-like figures appeared over the parapet, waving their arms in defiance, and the yells they were uttering came faintly to their ears.

“Someone has a rifle up there, My Lord,” said Seymour.

“Indeed? Perhaps then it would be best to withdraw out of range before he can reload.”

The incident had made little impression on Hornblower until that moment. Now he suddenly realised that the almost legendary career of the great Lord Hornblower might have been terminated then and there, that his future biographer might have had to deplore the ironic chance which, after so many pitched battles, brought him death at the hands of an obscure criminal in an unknown corner of a West Indian island. He turned and walked away, the others at his side. He found he was holding his neck rigid, his muscles tense; it had been a long time since his life was last in danger. He strove to appear natural.

“Sefton will be up with the mortar before long,” he said, after casting about in his mind for something natural to say; and he hoped it did not sound as unnatural to the others as it did to him.

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Where shall we site it?” He swung round and looked about him, measuring ranges with his eye. “It had better be out of range of that rifle.”

His interest in what he was doing immediately erased the memory of his danger. Another puff of smoke from the parapet; another echoing report.

“Did anyone hear that bullet? No? Then we can assume we’re out of rifle shot here.”

“If you please, My Lord,” asked Spendlove. “What range can you expect with a boat mortar?”

“The encyclopedic Spendlove displaying ignorance! Seven hundred yards with a one-pound charge of powder, and a time of flight of fifteen seconds. But here we have to burst the shell sixty feet above the firing-point. A nice problem in ballistics.” Hornblower spoke with perfect indifference, confident that no one knew that at one o’clock that morning he had been studying those figures in the manual. “Those trees there will be useful when we come to sway the mortar up. And there’s level ground within twenty feet of them. Excellent.”

“Here they come, My Lord.”

The first of the main body appeared round the distant corner of the cliff, hurrying along the river bank. As they took in the situation they broke into a yell and a run, leaping and scrambling over the broken ground; Hornblower was reminded of hounds rushing up clamouring at sight of their quarry at bay.

“Silence, there!” he roared. “You midshipman, there, can’t you keep your men under control? Mark their names for punishment, and I’ll mention yours to Mr. Sefton.”

Abashed, the seamen formed up quietly. Here came the punts, gliding like fate along the silent pool, towed by working parties scrambling along the bank.

“Orders, My Lord?” asked Sefton.

Hornblower glanced finally round the terrain before issuing them. The sun was long past its zenith as eager men clambered up the trees to fix the tackles; soon the mortar hung dangling from a stout limb while the mortar bed was hoisted out and settled in a smooth spot, the gunner fussing over it with a spirit level to make sure it was horizontal. Then, with violent manual labour, the mortar was swung over and finally heaved up into position, and the gunner drove the keys through the eye-bolts.

“Shall I open fire, My Lord?” asked Sefton.

Hornblower looked over at the distant seam in the face of the s cliff across the river. The pirates there would be watchingthem. Had they recognised this squat object, inconsiderable in size, undistinguished in shape, which meant death to them? They might well not know what it was; they were probably peering over the parapet trying to make out what it was that had occupied the attention of so considerable a body of men.

“What’s your elevation, gunner?”

“Sixty degrees, sir—My Lord.”

“Try a shot with a fifteen-second fuse.”

The gunner went carefully through the processes of loading, measuring the powder charge and wadding it down into the chamber, clearing the touch-hole with the priming iron and, then filling it with fine-grain powder from the horn. He took his bradawl and drove it carefully into the wooden stem of the fuse at the selected point—these were very new-fangled fuses, graduated with ink lines to mark the time of burning—and screwed it into the shell. He lowered the shell down upon the wad.

“Linstocks,” he said.

Someone had been chipping away with flint and steel to catch a spark upon the slow match. He transferred the glow to a second linstock which he handed to the gunner. The gunner, stooping, checked the pointing of the weapon.

“Fuse!” he said. His assistant touched his linstock down, and the fuse spluttered. Then the gunner thrust his glowing match upon the touch-hole. A roar and a billow of powder smoke.

Standing far back from the mortar Hornblower already had his face turned to the sky to track the shell in its flight. Against that light blue there was nothing to be seen—no, there at the height of the trajectory there was a brief black streak, instantly invisible again. A further wait; an inevitable thought that the fuse had failed, and then a distant explosion and a fountain of smoke, down at the base of the cliff somewhat to the right of the cave. There was a groan from the watching seamen.

“Silence, there!” bellowed Sefton.

“Try again, gunner,” said Hornblower.

The mortar was trained round a trifle on its bed. Its bore was sponged out and when the charge had been put in the gunner took a gill measure from his pocket and added a measure of powder to the charge. He pierced the fuse again, lowered the shell into the bore, gave his final order, and fired. A wait; and then a bold puff of smoke hung in the air, seemingly right in line with the seam in the cliff. The wretched people there were watching their fate creeping up on them.

“Fuse a little short,” said Hornblower.

“Range short, I fancy, My Lord,” said the gunner.

At the next shot there was a cloud of dust and a small avalanche from the cliff face high above the seam, and instantly afterwards the burst of the shell on the ground at the near edge of the river where it had fallen.

“Better,” said Hornblower. He had seen the principles of ranging with a mortar—a huge thirteen-inch one—at the siege of Riga nearly twenty years before.

Two more shots, both wasted—the shells exploded at the top of their trajectory, high, high up. Apparently those newfangled fuses were not quite reliable. Fountains spouted momentarily from the river surface as fragments rained into it. But the pirates must by now be fully aware of what the mortar implied.

“Give me that telescope, Gerard.”

He trained the instrument on the seam in the face of the cliff. He could see every detail now, the rough stone parapet, the waterfall at one end, but he could see no sign of the garrison. They were at the back of the cave or crouching behind the parapet.

“Fire another shot.”

Fifteen long seconds after the report. Then he saw fragments flying from under the overhang.

“Good shot!” he called, still watching. The shell must have fallen right into the cave. But as he uttered the words a dark figure appeared at the parapet, the arms swinging together. He saw the tiny black disc of the shell against the background of rock curving downwards and then a burst of smoke. Someone had seized the hot shell in his two hands and slung it over the parapet in the nick of time. A desperate deed.

“Pitch another shell there with a second’s less fuse and it will be all over,” he said, and then—“Wait.”

Surely those helpless people must surrender, and not stay to be massacred. What must he do to persuade them? He knew perfectly well.

“Send a white flag forward, My Lord?” asked Spendlove, voicing his thoughts.

“I was thinking about it,” said Hornblower.

It would be a dangerous mission. If the pirates were determined not to surrender they would not respect a flag of truce, and would fire on the bearer of it. There were a score of muskets and at least one rifle up there. Hornblower wanted neither to order someone forward nor to ask for a volunteer.

“I’ll do it, My Lord,” said Spendlove. “They know me.”

This was the price he had to pay, thought Hornblower, for his lofty position, for being an Admiral. He had to order his friends to their death. Yet on the other hand—

“Very well,” said Hornblower.

“Let’s have your shirt and your pike, my man,” said Spendlove.

A white shirt tied by the sleeves to a pikestaff made a fair white flag. As Spendlove went forward with it, through the cordon of red-coated marines, Hornblower was tempted to call him back. It was only unconditional surrender that could be offered, after all. He went as far as to open his mouth, but closed it again without saying the words he had in mind. Spendlove walked towards the river bank, stopping every few seconds to wave the flag. Through the telescope Hornblower could see nothing up in the cave. Then he saw a flash of metal, and a line of heads and shoulders over the parapet. A dozen muskets were taking aim at Spendlove. But Spendlove saw them too, and halted, with a wave of his flag. There were long seconds of tension, and then Spendlove turned his back upon the muskets and began to retrace his steps. As he did so there was a puff of smoke from the parapet; the rifleman had fired as soon as he had seen there was no chance of luring Spendlove within musket shot. Spendlove came walking back, trailing the pike and the shirt.

“He missed me, My Lord,” he said.

“Thank God,” said Hornblower. “Gunner, fire.”

The wind may have shifted a little, or the powder was not consistent. The shell burst in the air just below the level of the cave—so that the fuse must have been efficient—but some considerable distance from the cliff.

“Fire again,” said Hornblower.

There it was. A burst of smoke, a fountain of fragments, right in the cave. Horrible to think of what was happening there.

“Fire again.”

Another burst right in the cave.

“Fire again—No! Wait.”

Figures were appearing on the parapet—there had been some survivors, then, from those two bursts. Two figures—tiny dolls in the field of the telescope—seemed to hang in the air as they leaped. The telescope followed them down. One struck water in a fountain of spray. The other fell on the rocky shore, broken and horrible. He raised the telescope again. There was the ladder being thrown over from the parapet. There was a figure—and another figure—climbing down. Hornblower shut the telescope with a snap.

“Captain Seymour! Send a party forward to secure the prisoners.”

He did not have to see the horrors of the cave, the mutilated dead and the screaming wounded. He could see them in his mind’s eye when Seymour made his report of what he found when he ascended the ladder. It was done, finished. The wounded could be bandaged and carried down to the beach on litters to the death that awaited them, the unwounded driven along with them with their wrists bound. A courier could be sent off to the Governor to say that the pirate horde had been wiped out, so that the patrols could be called in and the militia sent home. He did not have to set eyes on the wretched people he had conquered. The excitement of the hunt was over. He had set himself a task to do, a problem to solve, just as he might work out a longitude from lunar observations, and he had achieved success. But the measure of that success could be expressed in hangings, in dead and in wounded, in that shattered, broken-backed figure lying on the rocks, and he had undertaken the task merely on a point of pride, to re-establish his self-esteem after the indignity of being kidnapped. It was no comfort to argue with himself—as he did—that what he had done would otherwise have been done by others, at great cost in disease and in economic disturbance. That only made him sneer at himself as a hair-splitting casuist. There were few occasions when Hornblower could do what was right in Hornblower’s eyes.

Yet there was some cynical pleasure to be derived from his lofty rank, to be able to leave all this after curt orders to Sefton and Seymour to bring the landing party back to the shore with the least delay and the shortest exposure to the night air, to go back on board and eat a comfortable dinner—even if it meant Fell’s rather boring company—and to sleep in a comfortable bed. And it was pleasant to find that Fell had already dined, so that he could eat his dinner merely in the company of his flag-lieutenant and his secretary. Nevertheless, there was one more unexpected crumpled petal in his roseleaf bed, and he discovered it, contrariwise, as a result of what he intended to be a kindly action.

“I shall have to add a further line to my remarks about you to Their Lordships, Spendlove,” he said. “It was a brave deed to go forward with that flag of truce.”

“Thank you, My Lord,” said Spendlove, who bent his gaze down on the tablecloth and drummed with his fingers before continuing, eyes still lowered in unusual nervousness. “Then perhaps Your Lordship will not be averse to putting in a word for me in another quarter?”

“Of course I will,” replied Hornblower in all innocence. “Where?”

“Thank you, My Lord. It was with this in mind that I did the little you have been kind enough to approve of. I would be deeply grateful if Your Lordship would go to the trouble of speaking well of me to Miss Lucy.”

Lucy! Hornblower had forgotten all about the girl. He quite failed to conceal his surprise, which was clearly apparent to Spendlove when he lifted his glance from the tablecloth.

“We jested about a wealthy marriage, My Lord,” said Spendlove. The elaborate care with which he was choosing his words proved how deep were his emotions. “I would not care if Miss Lucy had not a penny. My Lord, my affections are deeply engaged.”

“She is a very charming young woman,” said Hornblower, temporising desperately.

“My Lord, I love her,” burst out Spendlove, casting aside all restraint. “I love her dearly. At the ball I tried to interest her in myself, and I failed.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Hornblower.

“I could not but be aware of her admiration for you, My Lord. She spoke of Your Lordship repeatedly. I realised even then that one word from you would carry more weight than a long speech from me. If you would say that word, My Lord—”

“I’m sure you over-estimate my influence,” said Hornblower, choosing his words as carefully as Spendlove had done, but, he hoped, not as obviously. “But of course I will do all I can.”

“There is no need for me to reiterate my gratitude, My Lord,” said Spendlove.

This pleading creature, this poor love-lorn fellow, was the Spendlove whose cool daring had risked a leap in the darkness down a sixty-foot precipice. Hornblower remembered Lucy’s lips on his hands, remembered how she had followed him on her knees across the floor. The less he had to do with any of this the better, he decided. But the passion of a child hardly out of the schoolroom for a man of mature years was likely to be fleeting, transient, and the memory of her lost dignity would later be as painful to her as it was to him. She would find need to assert herself, to show him that he was not the only man in the world—and how could she demonstrate that more plainly than by marrying someone else? To use a vulgar phrase, there was quite a chance that Spendlove might catch her on the rebound.

“If good wishes can help,” he said, “you have all mine, Spendlove.”

Even an Admiral had to choose his words with care. Two days later he was announcing his immediate departure to the Governor.

“I’m taking my squadron to sea in the morning, Your Excellency,” he said.

“Aren’t you going to stay for the hangings?” asked Hooper in surprise.

“I fear not,” answered Hornblower, and added an unnecessary explanation. “Hangings don’t agree with me, Your Excellency.”

It was not merely an unnecessary explanation; it was a foolish one, as he knew as soon as he saw the open astonishment in Hooper’s face. Hooper could hardly have been more surprised at hearing that hangings did not agree with Hornblower than he would have been if he had heard that Hornblower did not agree with hangings—and that was very nearly as correct.