The Black Swan by Raphael Sabatini

Author:Raphael Sabatini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

Chapter 12

The Guardian

The infatuation of Tom Leach for the supposed Madame de Bernis – to employ a euphemistic indication of the emotions astir in his wild breast – became apparent to his officers. It was being treated by them with indifference, as merely a subject for lewd jests, until the shrewd-sighted Bundry pointed out the disadvantages that might result from it.

Alarmed by his cold reasoning, they improvised a council of war in the matter one day after dinner when the four of them were assembled with Leach in their hut.

Bundry was their spokesman, chosen because as fearless as he was passionless, he was the only one amongst them who dared to beard on so delicate a matter the violent Captain. The scarring by smallpox of his clay-coloured face had reduced it to a mask-like expressionlessness, which in itself made men apprehensive of him, for save in the twist of his lips or the gleam of his eyes, and this only when he so chose, he gave no indication of what might be passing in his mind. He had a clammy, chill, almost reptilian air, seeming utterly emotionless and as impervious to physical as to spiritual heat. In speech he was deliberate and precise, and he dressed his powerful stocky figure with a sober neatness, retained from the days when he had been a Captain of merchantmen.

In that cold, deliberate voice of his and with that cold, deliberate manner he plainly and succinctly laid before the Captain their disapproval of the course his conduct appeared to be steering.

Leach flung into a hideous passion, roaring and snarling and threatening to rip the bowels out of any man who stood between him and his desires whatever they might be.

Wogan, Halliwell, and Ellis sat cowed under his ranting violence, beginning to regret that they should have brought up the subject.

But Bundry fixed him coldly with an eye as expressionless as a snake’s, in the depths of which there dwelt perhaps some of that mesmeric power attributed to the colubrine gaze.

‘Breathe your lungs, Captain. Breathe ’em freely. It may let out some o’ the heat in ye. When ye’re cooler, maybe ye’ll listen to reason.’

‘Reason? Damn reason!’

‘That’s what ye’re doing,’ said Bundry.

‘Doing what?’

‘Damning reason. And reason, I’ve noticed, ends by damning him that damns it. That’s what’ll happen to you, Captain, unless ye shorten sail.’

To Leach this sounded like a threat. If it did not diminish his wrath, at least it abated his noise. He sat down again, and considered the pallid, almost sinister face before him with a malevolent glance.

‘I’s able enough to mind my own affairs, and I’s not letting anyone else mind them for me. Understand that?’

‘If it was a matter of your own affairs only,’ said the phlegmatic Bundry, ‘we’ld let you run aground, and be damned to you, Tom. But it happens also to be the affair of all of us. We’re all in this bottom together, and we’re not going to let any folly o’ yours sink the ship before we’ve cast anchor in the golden harbour o’ that Spanish treasure.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.