When Captain Blood goes to sea, he locks the doors and windows of his house on Cow Island personally. One never knows what sort of person might ce by, while one is away.
When Captain Blood, at sea, paces the deck, he usually paces the foredeck rather thaerdeck -- a matter of personal preference. He keeps marmalade and a spider monkey in his , and four perukes on stands.
When Captain Blood, at sea, discovers that he is pursued by the Dutch Admiral Van Tromp, he siders throwing the women overboard. So that they will drift, like so many giant lotuses in their green, lavender, purple and blue gowns, across Van Tromps path, and he will have to stop and pick them up. Blood will have the women fitted with life jackets uheir dresses. They will hardly be in much da all. But what about the jaws of sea turtles? No, the women ot be thrown overboard. Vile, vile! What an idiotic idea! What could he have been thinking of? Of the patterns they would have made floating on the surface of the water, in the moonlight, a cerise gown, a silver gown. . .
Captain Blood presents a fa?ade of steely imperturbability.
He is p over his charts, promising everyohat things will get better. There has not bee of booty in the last eight months. Should he try another course? Another o? The men have been quite det about the situation. Nothing has been said. Still, its nerve-rag.
When Captain Blood retires for the night (leaving orders that he be called instantly if something es up) he reads, usually. Or smokes, thinking calmly of last things.
His hideous reputation should not, strictly speaking, be painted in the horrible colors arily employed. Many a man walks the streets of Panama City, or Port Royal, or San Lorenzo, alive and well, who would have been stuck through the gizzard with a rapier, or smashed in the brain with a b pike, had it not been for Bloods swift, cheerful intervention. Of course, there are times when severe measures are unavoidable. At these times he does not flinch, but takes appropriate a with admirable steadiness. There are no two ways about it: when one looses a seventy-fun broadside against the fragile hull of another vessel, os age.
Blood at dawn, a solitary figure pag the foredeck.
No other sail in sight. He reaches into the pocket of his blue velvet jacket trimmed with silver lace. His hand closes over three round, white objects: mothballs. In disgust, he throws them over the side. One makes ones luck, he thinks. Reag into another pocket, he withdraws a folded part tied with ribbon. Uning the little packet, he finds that it is a memo that he wrote to himself ten months earlier. "Dolphin, Captain Darbraunce, 120 tons, cargo silver, paprika, bananas, sailing Mar. 10 Havana. Be there!" Chug, Blood goes off to seek his mate, Oglethorpe -- that laughing blond giant of a man.
Who will be aboard this vessel which is now within on-shot? wonders Captain Blood. Rich people, I hope, with pretty gold and silver things aplenty.
"Short John, where is Mr. Oglethorpe?"
"I am not Short John, sir. I am John-of-Orkney."
"Sorry, John. Has Mr. Oglethorpe carried out my instrus?"
"Yes, sir. He is forward, croug over the bombard, lit cheroot in hand, ready to fire."
"Well, fire then."
"Fire!"
BAM!
"The other captai uand what is happening to him!"
"Hes not heaving to!"
"Hes ign us!"
"The dolt!"
"Fire again!"
BAM!
"That did it!"