Rafael Sabatini - The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

Miss Bishop was still with Peter Blood when Major Mallard entered. His announcement startled them back to realities.

“You will be merciful with him. You will spare him all you can for my sake, Peter,” she pleaded.

“To be sure I will,” said Blood. “But I’m afraid the circumstances won’t.”

She effaced herself, escaping into the garden, and Major Mallard fetched the Colonel.

“His excellency the Governor will see you now,” said he, and threw wide the door.

Colonel Bishop staggered in, and stood waiting.

At the table sat a man of whom nothing was visible but the top of a carefully curled black head. Then this head was raised, and a pair of blue eyes solemnly regarded the prisoner. Colonel Bishop made a noise in his throat, and, paralyzed by amazement, stared into the face of his excellency the Deputy-Governor of Jamaica, which was the face of the man he had been hunting in Tortuga to his present undoing.

The situation was best expressed to Lord Willoughby by van der Kuylen as the pair stepped aboard the Admiral’s flagship.

“Id is fery boedigal!” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “Cabdain Blood is fond of boedry—you remember de abble-blossoms. So? Ha, ha!”

Table of Contents Table of Contents Novels NOVELS Table of Contents Scaramouche SCARAMOUCHE Table of Contents Captain Blood CAPTAIN BLOOD Table of Contents The Lovers of Yvonne THE LOVERS OF YVONNE Table of Contents The Tavern Knight THE TAVERN KNIGHT Table of Contents Bardelys the Magnificent The Trampling of the Lilies Love-at-Arms The Shame of Motley St. Martin's Summer Mistress Wilding The Lion's Skin The Strolling Saint The Gates of Doom The Sea Hawk The Snare Fortune's Fool The Carolinian Short Stories The Justice of the Duke The Banner of the Bull Other Stories Historical Works The Life of Cesare Borgia Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition The Historical Nights' Entertainment – First Series The Historical Nights' Entertainment – Second Series

Table of Contents

Chapter I. Of How a Boy Drank Too Much Wine, and What Came of It

Chapter II. The Fruit of Indiscretion

Chapter III. The Fight in the Horse-market

Chapter IV. Fair Rescuers

Chapter V. Mazarin, the Match-maker

Chapter VI. Of How Andrea Became Love-sick

Chapter VII. The Château de Canaples

Chapter VIII. The Foreshadow of Disaster

Chapter IX. Of How a Whip Proved a Better Argument than a Tongue

Chapter X. The Conscience of Malpertuis

Chapter XI. Of a Woman's Obstinacy

Chapter XII. The Rescue

Chapter XIII. The Hand of Yvonne

Chapter XIV. Of What Befell at Reaux.

Chapter XV. Of My Resurrection

Chapter XVI. The Way of Woman

Chapter XVII. Father and Son

Chapter XVIII. Of How I Left Canaples

Chapter XIX. Of My Return to Paris

Chapter XX. Of How the Chevalier de Canaples Became a Frondeur

Chapter XXI. Of the Bargain that St. Auban Drove with My Lord Cardinal

Chapter XXII. Of My Second Journey to Canaples

Chapter XXIII. Of How St. Auban Came to Blois

Chapter XXIV. Of the Passing of St. Auban

Chapter XXV. Play-acting

Chapter XXVI. Reparation

Table of Contents

Andrea de Mancini sprawled, ingloriously drunk, upon the floor. His legs were thrust under the table, and his head rested against the chair from which he had slipped; his long black hair was tossed and dishevelled; his handsome, boyish face flushed and garbed in the vacant expression of idiocy.

“I beg a thousand pardons, M. de Luynes,” quoth he in the thick, monotonous voice of a man whose brain but ill controls his tongue—“I beg a thousand pardons for the unseemly poverty of our repast. 'T is no fault of mine. My Lord Cardinal keeps a most unworthy table for me. Faugh! Uncle Giulio is a Hebrew—if not by birth, by instinct. He carries his purse-strings in a knot which it would break his heart to unfasten. But there! some day my Lord Cardinal will go to heaven—to the lap of Abraham. I shall be rich then, vastly rich, and I shall bid you to a banquet worthy of your most noble blood. The Cardinal's health—perdition have him for the niggardliest rogue unhung!”

I pushed back my chair and rose. The conversation was taking a turn that was too unhealthy to be pursued within the walls of the Palais Mazarin, where there existed, albeit the law books made no reference to it, the heinous crime of lèse-Eminence—a crime for which more men had been broken than it pleases me to dwell on.

“Your table, Master Andrea, needs no apology,” I answered carelessly. “Your wine, for instance, is beyond praise.”

“Ah, yes! The wine! But, ciel! Monsieur,” he ejaculated, for a moment opening wide his heavy eyelids, “do you believe 't was Mazarin provided it? Pooh! 'T was a present made me by M. de la Motte, who seeks my interest with my Lord Cardinal to obtain for him an appointment in his Eminence's household, and thus thinks to earn my good will. He's a pestilent creature, this la Motte,” he added, with a hiccough—“a pestilent creature; but, Sangdieu! his wine is good, and I'll speak to my uncle. Help me up, De Luynes. Help me up, I say; I would drink the health of this provider of wines.”

I hurried forward, but he had struggled up unaided, and stood swaying with one hand on the table and the other on the back of his chair. In vain did I remonstrate with him that already he had drunk overmuch.

“'T is a lie!” he shouted. “May not a gentleman sit upon the floor from choice?”

To emphasise his protestation he imprudently withdrew his hand from the chair and struck at the air with his open palm. That gesture cost him his balance. He staggered, toppled backward, and clutched madly at the tablecloth as he fell, dragging glasses, bottles, dishes, tapers, and a score of other things besides, with a deafening crash on to the floor.

Then, as I stood aghast and alarmed, wondering who might have overheard the thunder of his fall, the fool sat up amidst the ruins, and filled the room with his shrieks of drunken laughter.

“Silence, boy!” I thundered, springing towards him. “Silence! or we shall have the whole house about our ears.”

And truly were my fears well grounded, for, before I could assist him to rise, I heard the door behind me open. Apprehensively I turned, and sickened to see that that which I had dreaded most was come to pass. A tall, imposing figure in scarlet robes stood erect and scowling on the threshold, and behind him his valet, Bernouin, bearing a lighted taper.

Mancini's laugh faded into a tremulous cackle, then died out, and with gaping mouth and glassy eyes he sat there staring at his uncle.

Thus we stayed in silence while a man might count mayhap a dozen; then the Cardinal's voice rang harsh and full of anger.

“'T is thus that you fulfil your trust, M. de Luynes!” he said.

“Your Eminence—” I began, scarce knowing what I should say, when he cut me short.

“I will deal with you presently and elsewhere.” He stepped up to Andrea, and surveyed him for a moment in disgust. “Get up, sir!” he commanded. “Get up!”

The lad sought to obey him with an alacrity that merited a kinder fate. Had he been in less haste perchance he had been more successful. As it was, he had got no farther than his knees when his right leg slid from under him, and he fell prone among the shattered tableware, mumbling curses and apologies in a breath.

Mazarin stood gazing at him with an eye that was eloquent in scorn, then bending down he spoke quickly to him in Italian. What he said I know not, being ignorant of their mother tongue; but from the fierceness of his utterance I'll wager my soul 't was nothing sweet to listen to. When he had done with him, he turned to his valet.