is black
brows knitted, his coarse lips pursed, malevolence and vindictiveness
so whelming now his recent panic that he forgot his near escape of the
yardarm and the running noose.

On the mole at Port Royal, under the low, embattled wall of the fort,
Major Mallard and Lord Julian waited to receive him, and it was with
infinite relief that they assisted him from the sloop.

Major Mallard was disposed to be apologetic.

"Glad to see you safe, sir," said he. "I'd have sunk Blood's ship in
spite of your excellency's being aboard but for your own orders by Lord
Julian, and his lordship's assurance that he had Blood's word for
it that no harm should come to you so that no harm came to him. I'll
confess I thought it rash of his lordship to accept the word of a damned
pirate...."

"I have found it as good as another's," said his lordship, cropping the
Major's too eager eloquence. He spoke with an unusual degree of that
frosty dignity he could assume upon occasion. The fact is that his
lordship was in an exceedingly bad humour. Having written jubilantly
home to the Secretary of State that his mission had succeeded, he was
now faced with the necessity of writing again to confess that this
success had been ephemeral. And because Major Mallard's crisp mostachios
were lifted by a sneer at the notion of a buccaneer's word being
acceptable, he added still more sharply: "My justification is here in
the person of Colonel Bishop safely returned. As against that, sir, your
opinion does not weigh for very much. You should realize it."

"Oh, as your lordship says." Major Mallard's manner was tinged with
irony. "To be sure, here is the Colonel safe and sound. And out yonder
is Captain Blood, also safe and sound, to begin his piratical ravages
all over again."

"I do not propose to discuss the reasons with you, Major Mallard."

"And, anyway, it's not for long," growled the Colonel, finding speech at
last. "No, by....." He emphasized the assurance by an unprintable oath.
"If I spend the last shilling of my fortune and the last ship of the
Jamaica fleet, I'll have that rascal in a hempen necktie before I rest.
And I'll not be long about it." He had empurpled in his angry vehemence,
and the veins of his forehead stood out like whipcord. Then he checked.

"You did well to follow Lord Julian's instructions," he commended the
Major. With that he turned from him, and took his lordship by the arm.
"Come, my lord. We must take order about th