Captain Blood: His Odyssey / Одиссея капитана Блада
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Then Mr. Blood looked at the Lords Commissioners and Lord Jefrf eys. He knew how bloodthirsty Lord Jefrf eys was.
Lord Jefrf eys was a tall man in his forties, with an oval beautiful face. His face was very pale, only his full lips were red. Something in those lips ruined that beautiful face. The doctor in Mr. Blood looked at him with interest. He knew that the man suffered from a disease and that he led such a life in spite of it – or even because of it.
“Peter Blood, hold up your hand!”
When Mr. Blood raised his hand, the clerk told him that he was a false traitor against King James the Second. Mr. Blood was then told to say whether he was guilty or not guilty. He answered more than was asked.
“I am innocent.”
A small man at a table before and to the right of him stood up. It was Mr. Pollexfen, the Judge-Advocate[15].
“Are you guilty or not guilty?” said this gentleman.
“Not guilty.” said Peter Blood. And he went on, speaking to the bench. “I am only guilty, because I didn’t have enough patience. I spent two months in prison with great danger to my health and even life…”
He would have said more; but then the Lord Chief Justice started speaking in a gentle and slightly sad voice.
“We must follow the usual methods of trial, so I must interrupt you. I’m sure you do not know the forms of law?”
“I don’t, my lord, and I would not want to learn them.”
The Lord Chief Justice smiled.
“I believe you. We shall hear you when you come to your defense. But now you cannot say anything.”
Mr. Blood answered that he would be tried by God and his country. The clerk then called upon Andrew Baynes to hold up his hand.
When Baynes said he was not guilty, the clerk called upon Pitt, who said he was guilty. The Lord Chief Justice was happy to hear that.
“Come; that’s better. If he answered as the other two rebels, there would never be an end.”
After those words, Mr. Pollexfen stood up. He said that there was a general case against the three men, and a particular case against Peter Blood.
The only witness for the King was Captain Hobart. He told the jury how he had found and taken the three prisoners, together with Lord Gildoy. He would have hanged Pitt, but had listened to the lies of the prisoner Blood and believed that Pitt was a noble man.
As the Captain finished, Lord Jefrf eys looked at Peter Blood.
“Will the prisoner Blood ask the witness any questions?”
“No, my lord. He has told you exactly what happened”
“I am glad. For we always have the truth in the end. Be sure of that.”
Baynes and Pitt admitted that the Captain’s evidence was accurate. The Lord Chief Justice sighed. He was relieved.
“If this is so, let us continue, because we have much to do.” His voice was not gentle anymore. “I think, Mr. Pollexfen, now when these three prisoners admitted their treason, there is no more to be said.”
Peter Blood spoke and members of the jury could almost hear laughter in his voice.
“There’s much more to be said.”
Lord Jefrf eys looked at him, first in surprise, then in anger.
“How now? Would you waste our time?”
“I would like to speak in my defense, as you promised me.”
“Why, so you shall.” The Lord Chief Justice took a handkerchief with his delicate unusually white hand and touched his lips and then his brow with it. Peter Blood saw that the disease that was destroying him made him feel pain. “So you shall. But after you admitted your treason, what defense is there?”
“You shall judge, my lord.”
“That is why I sit here.”
“And so shall you, gentlemen.” Blood looked from judge to jury. The jury moved under the look of his blue eyes.
“Captain Hobart has told you what he knows – that he found me at the farm on the Monday morning after the battle at Weston. But he has not told you what I did there.”
Again the Judge broke in. “Why, what should you have been doing there among rebels? Two of them – Lord Gildoy and your friend there – have already admitted their guilt.”
“That is what I would like to tell you.”
“Well, do, but be brief, man.”
“I was there, my lord, as a doctor, to help the wounded Lord Gildoy.”
“What’s this? Do you tell us that you are a doctor?”
“A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.”
“Good God!” cried Lord Jefrf eys and looked at the jury. “You heard the witness say that he had known him in France some years ago? He was then an oficf er in the French service. You heard the prisoner admit that the witness had spoken the truth?”
“That is true. What I am telling you is also true. For some years I was a soldier; but before that I was a doctor, and I have been a doctor in Bridgewater since last January. I can bring a hundred witnesses to prove.”
“Don’t waste our time with that. I will ask you only this: Why were you with the army of the Duke of Monmouth?”
“I was never with that army. No witness has said that, and no witness will. What should I as a papist be doing in the army of the Protestant leader?”
“A papist?” The judge looked at him for a moment. “You are more like a Presbyterian. I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles.”
“Then why can’t you smell a papist at four steps?”
Some people in the galleries laughed, but they were silent when the Judge looked at them.
Lord Jefrf eys raised his delicate white hand.
“We won’t talk about your religion, friend,” said he. “But listen to what I say to you. Know, friend, there is no religion that says that lying is a good thing. There is nothing more precious in the world than a soul. Why were you taken with these rebels?”
Peter Blood looked at him for a moment. The man was a nightmare judge. Then he replied:
“I was asked that morning to help Lord Gildoy, and as I am a doctor it was my duty to help him.”
“Was it?” The Judge – his face white, his lips blood red – looked upon him in anger. Then he sighed. His voice was gentle and sad again. “Lord! How you waste our time. Who asked you?”
“Master Pitt, you can ask him.”
“Oh! Master Pitt is a traitor. He admitted it. Is that your witness?”
“There is also Master Baynes here, who can answer to it.”
“Good Master Baynes will have to answer for himself. Come, come, sir; are these your only witnesses?”
“I could bring others from Bridgewater, who saw me set out that morning.”
The Judge smiled. “It will not be necessary. I do not want to waste more time on you. Answer me only this: When Master Pitt came to ask you for help, did you know that he supported Monmouth?”
“I did, my lord.”
“You did! Ha!” Lord Jefrf eys looked at the scared jury and laughed. “Yet you went with him?”
“To help a wounded man, as was my duty.”
“Your duty, you say? Your duty is to your King and to God. But let it pass. Did he tell you who needed help?”
“Lord Gildoy – yes.”
“And you knew that Lord Gildoy had been wounded in the battle, and on what side he fought?”
“I knew.”
“And yet you went to help him?”
Peter Blood lost patience for a moment. “I cared only for his wounds, not his politics.”
Voices from the galleries and even from the jury approved him. It made the judge even angrier.
“Jesus God!” Lord Jeffreys turned, pale, to the jury. “He has said enough to hang him many times. Yet there is more. Answer me this, sir: Why did you lie to Captain Hobart about this other traitor Pitt?”
“I wanted to save him from being hanged without trial.”
“Why would you care if and how he was hanged?”
“I cared for justice. An injustice done in the name of the King hurts the King’s honour.”
Mr. Blood could see that Lord Jefrf eys did not want him to impress the jury. The judge leaned forward. “Jesus God!” he said. “I see you at the gallows already.” Lord Jefrf eys sat back again. It was as if a curtain fell. All emotion passed again from his pale face. After a moment’s pause, he turned again to the jury and spoke in a soft voice.
“Gentlemen, if any person is in rebellion against the King, and another person – who was not in rebellion – helps him, such a person is a traitor too.”
He then said that Baynes and Blood were both guilty of treason for helping a traitor. And then he sat back. For a moment he was still. He touched his lips with his handkerchief again; then he moved uneasily.
Peter Blood was so amazed that he almost forgot that his own life was in danger.
The jury found the three prisoners guilty. Peter Blood looked round the court. A voice was asking him what he had to say for himself, why he should not be hanged.
He laughed. His laughter shocked the Judge.
“Do you laugh with the rope about your neck?”
And then Blood took his revenge.
“I will tell you this. You see me – an innocent man – at the gallows. You speak of what is to happen to me. I, being a doctor, may speak of what is to happen to you. And I tell you that I would not now change places with you. I would rather go to the gallows than have the stone that you carry in your body. My death will be more pleasant than your death.”
The Lord Chief Justice sat upright, his face pale. While you might have counted to ten there was no sound in that court after Peter Blood had finished speaking. All those who knew Lord Jeffreys thought that he would become furious. But he did not.
Slowly, the colour came back into that pale face. Lord Jeffreys leaned forward in his blood red robe and began to speak. Everyone in the hall could see that his mind were somewhere else while his lips were speaking. He sentenced the three prisoners to death.
Peter Blood, Jeremy Pitt, and Andrew Baynes went out one after the other.
When the trial was finished, Mr. Pollexfen said quietly:
“He has frightened Lord Jefrf eys. It’s a pity he’ll be hanged. A man who can frighten Jefrf eys should go far.”
Chapter IV
BUYING AND SELLING PEOPLE
Mr. Pollexfen was right and wrong at the same time.
He was right that a man who could frighten such a lord of terror as Jefrf eys should go far. He was wrong that Peter Blood would be hanged.
I have said that there were two reasons why Peter Blood could be grateful in this situation: one that he was tried at all; the other that his trial took place on the 19th of September. Until the 18th, the sentences of the court of the Lords Commissioners had been carried out quickly. But on the morning of the 19th a courier from Lord Sunderland, the Secretary of State[16], arrived at Taunton with a letter for Lord Jeffreys. In the letter, it was said that eleven hundred rebels should be sent to some of His Majesty’s southern plantations, Jamaica, Barbados, or any of the Leeward Islands[17].
He did not do it out of mercy. It was true that the King’s heart was like a stone. The King had realised that he could use the men instead of hanging them. In the plantations, they needed slaves and they would buy a healthy man for at least ten to fifteen pounds. Then, there were many gentlemen who had some interest in His Majesty’s money. Here was an easy way to pay them. Some rebels might be given to those gentlemen, so that they might use them to their own profit.
Gentlemen of the court should get a thousand prisoners, and the Queen should get a further hundred. These prisoners should be sent at once to His Majesty’s southern plantations. They should spend ten years there before they are free again.
We know from Lord Jefrf eys’s secretary that the Chief Justice got drunk that night and loudly protested against His Majesty’s decision. We also know that he wrote a letter to the King and asked him to change his decision. But James did not. The King knew that he had saved the rebels from hanging, but turned their lives into living deaths.
Peter Blood, Jeremy Pitt, and Andrew Baynes were not hanged, but sent to Bristol[18] and then with some fifty others to West India on Captain Gardner’s Jamaica Merchant. On the way there, eleven of the prisoners died from a sickness. Among them was the unfortunate Andrew Baynes. He had been forced to leave his quiet homestead and the orchards, only because he had tried to help a wounded man.
More than eleven people might have died, but Peter Blood insisted that he should help the sick. Captain Gardner felt that he might get in trouble if he lost more men, so he was glad that he could leave the sick to the skill of Peter Blood. The doctor worked hard and stopped the disease.
In the middle of December the Jamaica Merchant with the forty-two rebels arrived at Carlisle Bay[19].
Some of them had imagined that they were coming into some wild country. When they looked at the town from the ship, they saw houses built in European style. They could see a church among the red roofs and the wide facade of Government House on a gentle hill above the town. This hill was green like an English hill in April, and the day was like an April day in England, when heavy rains finally end.
On the shore they saw the guards, who had come to receive them, and a crowd of people. They looked exactly like the people in England, only there were fewer women and more negroes.
Governor Steed, a short gentleman with a red face, also came to receive them. With him came the tall colonel of the Barbados Militia, and a young lady with red-brown curly hair and brown eyes.
Peter Blood looked at her face, which seemed so out of place here. The lady looked back at him, and he moved uncomfortably. He had not washed himself, his hair was dirty, and he had a black beard on his face. His clothes had turned to rags. She should not be looking at him, but she was. She touched Colonel Bishop’s sleeve and he turned to face her. He looked annoyed.
She was speaking to him, but the Colonel did not pay much attention to her. His little eyes had moved away from her and were looking at the fair-haired young Pitt, who was standing beside Mr. Blood.
The Governor had also stopped, and for a moment now they stood there and talked. What the lady said, Peter could not hear at all, because she spoke quietly. He could only hear the Colonel’s high-pitched voice, but he did not understand the words. The Governor’s voice carried far and he spoke loudly so that everyone could hear him.
“But, my dear Colonel Bishop, you should choose first and set your own price. After that we’ll send the rest to auction.”
Colonel Bishop nodded. He answered loudly. “They’re thin and weak; there won’t be much use of them in the plantation.” He looked at them again. He seemed annoyed and disappointed that they were in no better condition. Then he started talking to Captain Gardner and the master of the Jamaica Merchant for some minutes. The master of the ship made a list for him.
Then he came up to the men. He stopped before young Pitt, and stood for a moment looking at him. Then he felt the muscles of the young man’s arm, and told him open his mouth so that he might see his teeth. The Colonel nodded.
He spoke to Gardner over his shoulder.
“Fifteen pounds for this one.”
The Captain did not agree with the price. “Fifteen pounds! It isn’t half what I wanted to ask for him.”
“It is twice as much as I wanted to give,” said the Colonel.
“Even thirty pounds are not enough, your honour.”
“I can get a negro for that. These white men die quickly. They can’t work.”
They argued over the price for some time. Pitt, a sensitive man, was quiet and did not move. Only the colour in his cheeks showed how dificf ult it was for him to control himself.
Peter Blood was annoyed that he had to listen to their argument.
In the background, moving slowly along the line of prisoners, went the lady. She was talking to the Governor and did not hear what the Colonel was saying. Did she care at all?
Colonel Bishop went on.
“I’ll give you twenty pounds. Not a penny more.”
Captain Gardner realised that Colonel Bishop would not change his mind and sighed. The Colonel only looked at Mr. Blood and stopped in front of a middle-aged man. His name was Wolverstone and he had lost an eye at Sedgemoor. The Colonel and Captain Gardner started arguing about the price again.
Peter Blood stood there in the sunlight. The air was different from any air that he had ever breathed. It smelled of wood and flowers. He did not want to talk. Young Pitt did not want to talk either. He stood at Peter Blood’s side and thought that he might not see him again. In the last months, he had learnt to love and depend on Peter Blood. He felt lonely and miserable.
Other people came and looked at them, and went. Blood did not pay attention to them. And then something happened at the end of the line. Gardner was speaking in a loud voice to the people that had waited until Colonel Bishop had finished. Blood noticed that the girl was speaking to Bishop and pointing up the line. Bishop looked in the direction in which she was pointing. Then slowly, he went up the line with Gardner, the lady, and the Governor.
The lady made the Colonel stop in front of Blood.
“But this is the man I meant,” she said.
“This one?” Colonel Bishop asked. Peter Blood was now looking into a pair of brown eyes on a yellow face. “A bag of bones. What should I do with him?”
He was turning away when Gardner spoke.
“He may be thin, but healthy. When half of them were sick, this man helped them. Say fifteen pounds for him, Colonel. That’s cheap enough. He’s strong, though he is thin. And he can bear the heat when it comes. The climate will never kill him.”
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Notes
1
Бриджуотер, Тонтон – города на юго-западе Англии
2
Джеймс Скотт, 1-й герцог Монмут (1649–1685) – внебрачный сын короля Англии Карла II. После смерти отца попытался использовать недовольство английских протестантов новым королём, католиком Яковом II, чтобы захватить престол. Потерпел поражение, попал в плен и был обезглавлен.
3
Гораций (Квинт Гораций Флакк) – 65 г. до н. э. – 27 г. до н. э. – древнеримский поэт-лирик золотого века античной литературы.
4
«Куда, куда стремитесь вы, безумцы?» (лат. цитата из седьмого эпода Горация)
5
(лат.) бакалавр медицины
6
Тринити-колледж (Дублин) – одно из старейших и самых престижных высших учебных заведений Ирландии.
7
Микель Адриансон де Рюйтер (1607–1676) – нидерландский адмирал. Был смертельно ранен в сражении у берегов Сицилии во время войны с Францией.
8
Нимвегенский мир был подписан в 1678–1679 гг. для завершения Голландской войны 1672–1678 гг.
9
Битва при Седжмуре – последнее и решающее сражение восстания Монмута. Произошло 6 июля 1685 г. возле Бриджуотера в графстве Сомерсет, Англия.
10
Танжерский полк был образован в 1661 г. и входил в состав гарнизона английского Танжера (крупный портовый город на севере Марокко).
11
Лайм-Риджис – маленький город в Юго-Западной Англии.
12
Тори – политическая партия в Англии, в XVII–XIX вв. представлявшая интересы крупных землевладельцев-дворян. Тори выступали сторонниками монархизма, являлись носителями религиозного наследия ортодоксии Церкви Англии, а также выступали против либерализма фракции вигов.
13
Лорд главный судья Англии и Уэльса – глава судебной власти Англии и Уэльса. Исторически являлся вторым после лорд-канцлера в судебной иерархии.
14
Лорды-уполномоченные, участники суда Высокой комиссии, верховного церковного суда в Англии и Шотландии, восстановленного на время правления короля Якова II.
15
Судья-адвокат – консультант по правовым вопросам в военном суде.
16
Лорд Сандерленд, генеральный секретарь – Роберт Спенсер, второй граф Сандерленд (1641–1702) – английский аристократ, дипломат и политик из рода Спенсеров.
17
Ямайка, Барбадос, Ливардские (Подветренные) острова – британские колонии в Карибском море.
18
Бристоль – крупный порт в Юго-Западной Англии в Великобритании, расположенный на реке Эйвон, недалеко от её впадения в Бристольский залив Атлантического океана.
19
Залив Карлайл – залив на юго-востоке Бриджтауна, столицы Барбадоса.