“Your Excellency —”
“Not one more word, I said. This Spendlove is one of the King’s servants. He must run the risks of his position, even though he is only a secretary.”
“But —”
“I order you to keep silence, My Lord. You have fair warning. Tomorrow when you’re rested we can plan to smoke out this wasps’ nest.”
Hornblower himself checked the protest that still rose to his lips. Hooper meant what he said when he threatened arrest. The massive discipline that permeated the armed forces of the Crown had Hornblower in its grip as surely as if he were the least seaman. To disobey an order was hopeless from the start. The irresistible force of his own conscience might be driving him forward, but here he was up against the immovable barrier of discipline. Tomorrow? Tomorrow was another day.
“Very well, Your Excellency.”
“A night’s rest will do you all the good in the world, My Lord. Perhaps it would be best if you slept here. I will give the necessary orders. If you instruct your flag-lieutenant as to the fresh clothes you will need I will send to Admiralty House for them to be ready for you in the morning.”
Clothes? Hornblower looked down at himself. He had forgotten entirely that he was wearing his black full-dress. One glance was enough to tell him that never again could he wear that suit. Now he could guess about the rest of his appearance. He knew that his haggard cheeks must be sprouting a bristly beard, his neckcloth in wild disorder. No wonder that people had looked at him curiously in the anteroom.
“Your Excellency is very kind,” he said.
There was no harm in being formally polite in the face of the temporarily inevitable. There had been that in Hooper’s tone which told him that the invitation might as well have been an order, that he was as much a prisoner in Government House as if Hooper had actually carried out his threat of putting him under arrest. It was best to yield gracefully since he had to yield for the moment at least. Tomorrow was another day.
“Allow me to conduct you to your room, My Lord,” said Hooper.
The mirror in the bedroom confirmed his worst fears regarding his appearance. The bed, with its enormous mosquito net, was wide and inviting. His aching joints clamoured that he should allow himself to fall across that bed and repose himself; his weary brain demanded that he should sink into oblivion, forget his troubles in sleep as a drunkard might forget them in liquor. It was a relaxation to soap himself in a tepid bath, despite the smarting protests of the raw places on his body. And yet, bathed and relaxed, with one of His Excellency’s nightshirts flapping round his knees, he could not give way to his weaknesses. His innermost ego refused to recognise them. He found himself hobbling barefooted about the room. He had no quarterdeck to pace; the candle-heated tropical air of the bedroom was not as conducive to inspiration as was a fresh sea breeze; mosquitoes buzzed about him, stinging his neck and his bare legs and distracting him. It was one of those dreadful nights; sometimes he relaxed so far as to sit on a chair, but within a few seconds a new train of thought brought him to his feet again, to limp up and down.
It was maddening that he could not keep his thoughts concentrated on the problem of Spendlove. He felt a contempt for himself that he should find his mind deserting his devoted secretary; there was a rival train of thought which was frequently successful in holding his attention. He knew, before the night was over, just how he would deal with the pirates’ lair if his hands were free; he even knew satisfaction in recapitulating his plans, only to find the satisfaction replaced by sick despair at the thought of Spendlove in the pirates’ hands. There were moments when his stomach turned over as he remembered Johnson’s threat to dig out Spendlove’s eyes.
Weariness took him by surprise in the end; he had sat down and rested his head on his hand, and then awakened with a start as he fell forward in his chair. The awakening was not complete enough; unconscious of what he was doing he settled himself back in his chair and slept in that fashion, the vast, comfortable bed untenanted, until a knocking at his door roused him to blink about him wondering where he was before bracing himself to make it seem as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to sleep in a chair when a bed was available.
It was Giles who came in, bearing clean linen and a uniform and razors; the business of shaving and of dressing carefully served to steady him and kept him from thinking too furiously about the problem he would have to solve in the next few minutes.
“His Excellency would be glad if His Lordship would take breakfast with him.”
That was a message conveyed through the door to Giles; the invitation must be accepted, of course, as it was the equivalent of a royal command. Hooper, apparently, was partial to a steak for breakfast; a silver dish of steak and onions was brought in almost as soon as Hornblower had uttered his formal good morning. Hooper looked at Hornblower oddly when he answered the butler’s enquiry with a request for papaya and a boiled egg — that was a bad start, for it confirmed Hooper in his opinions of Hornblower’s eccentricity that he should have these outlandish Frenchified notions about breakfast. Years of living on shore had not yet dulled the appetite for fresh eggs in their shells which Hornblower had acquired during decades at sea. Hooper daubed mustard on his steak and set about it with appetite.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Well enough, thank you, Your Excellency.”
Hooper’s abandonment of the formal ‘My Lord’ was a not too subtle indication that he was willing to forget last night’s discussion and to act magnanimously as if Hornblower was a normal person with only a temporary lapse on his record.
“We’ll leave business until we’ve eaten.”
“As you wish, Your Excellency.”
But not even a Governor can be sure of his future. There was a bustle at the door, and a whole group of people came hurrying in, not merely the butler but two aides-de-camp and Gerard and — and — who was that? Pale and ragged and weary, almost unable to stand on tottering legs.
“Spendlove!” said Hornblower, his spoon clattering to the floor as he rose and hurried to him.
Hornblower clasped his hand, grinning with delight. Perhaps there had never been a moment in his life which had held so much sheer pleasure for him.
“Spendlove!” He could only repeat the name at first.
“Is this the return of the prodigal?” asked Hooper from the table.
Hornblower remembered his manners.
“Your Excellency,” he said, “may I take it upon myself to present my secretary, Mr Erasmus Spendlove?”
“Glad to see you, young man. Take a seat at the table. Bring Mr Spendlove some food! He looks as if a glass of wine would not come amiss. Bring the decanter and a glass.”
“You’re not wounded?” asked Hornblower. “You’re not hurt?”
“No, My Lord,” said Spendlove, extending his legs cautiously under the table. “It is only that seventy miles on horseback have stiffened my unaccustomed limbs.”
“Seventy miles?” asked Hooper. “From where?”
“Montego Bay, Your Excellency.”
“Then you must have escaped in the night?”
“At nightfall, Your Excellency.”
“But what did you do, man?” demanded Hornblower. “How did you get away?”
“I jumped, My Lord. Into the water.”
“Into the water?”
“Yes, My Lord. There was eight feet of water in the river at the foot of the cliff; enough to break my fall from any height.”
“So there was. But — but — in the dark?”
“That was easy, My Lord. I looked over the parapet during the day. I did when I said goodbye to Your Lordship. I marked the spot and I measured the distance with my eye.”
“And then?”
“And then I jumped when it was fully dark, and raining hard.”