"Ay, I do," answered Adam and, uncrossing his arms, showed the two small pistols he held drawn and levelled; Black Bartlemy tittered, bowed graciously again and now fronted their menace empty-handed.
"So?" he murmured, smiling. "Well, shoot if you will and end Black Bartlemy with craven's pistol 'stead o' valiant steel. Yet this were so preposterous easy I am certain you will not."
"Truly," said Adam, staring into the dark eyes that, beneath their sleepy-drooping lids, watched him so shrewdly, "this is not that murderous hangman's ship called Lady's Delight. Now if it were, and I in your case, you would murder or hang me—by mere force of habit, eh, Black Bartlemy?"
"Captain Adam, to answer you faithfully, I believe I should. Though, as you suggest, merely because I am Black Bartlemy the—um—'detested rogue and notorious pirate' and must live up to my so heinous reputation. So you, sir, as Penfeather, The Buccaneer, and puritanical smug who drowns men wholesale and prays over 'em piously whiles they perish, should abide as truly by yours. Thus, sir, as you detest pirates and I have as lively a contempt for sanctimonious Judases, let us here make an end of wordy speechifying by earnest endeavour to end one another."
"With pleasure!" answered Adam, returning each pistol to its hiding-place.
"Now, sir," said Bartlemy, "when you have snuffled prayer or sung psalm, I am wholly at your service," and he laid one finger to the jewelled pommel of his rapier, "and best—ashore, I think?"
Adam, fingering chin, surveyed his soft-voiced challenger; then suddenly instead of prayer or psalm, he intoned solemnly:
"'There be two at the fore,
At the main be three more
Dead men that hang all of a row...'"
Black Bartlemy's sleepy eyes widened, then he smiled and nodded with affable condescension.
"Ah!" said he. "So you've heard poor Troy's poorer jingle? Yet this is fame, sir! For these sorry verses, becoming a chantey, do trumpet me abroad, so that though I am happy to be rid of him, I shall regret he will make no more songs o' me henceforth."
"Meaning," enquired Adam, finger and thumb at chin again, "that he is dead?"
"Worse, sir! Troy lieth fast in clutch of the Holy Inquisition whose saintly, though zealous, familiars and sons o' the Church shall teach him a death vastly unpleasant ... yet scarce more so than I might ha' done had mine been the good fortune to take him."
"How know you of this?"
"How should I not? Sir, I have my agents all along the Main. But, to be frank, this good news, Troy being one o' my few abominations, these glad tidings were given me by one of his crew, a petty rascal he marooned,—and called Abnegation Mings."
"And where lieth this Troy prisoned?"
"In dungeon of the Holy Office at——" Black Bartlemy paused to sniff at his pomander again, viewing his questioner slyly askance, then, finding him dumb, enquired:
"Pray why would you know, Sir Buccaneer?"
"No matter!" answered Adam, stifling a yawn, "I was curious to learn if his wife was prisoned with him, but——"
"Wife?" exclaimed Bartlemy, almost forgetting to be languid. "Absalom Troy—with a wife? Can the poor, fond wretch have sunk to wedlock when any woman may be had for the taking—by such as we? Troy wed,—not he! Knowing the man, I'll not believe it of him. Have you, perchance, seen his—um—reputed wife?"
"I have."
"A lovely creature, ha?"
"Yes."
"Then you may take it she, if a wife, is wife of another man, wife filched from doting spouse,—or she is some loose, pretty doxy, or shameless baggage, some warm, luscious——"
"Enough!" snarled Adam, then checked the fierce retort upon his lips; but Bartlemy's eyes, keen as Adam's own, had seen the grim tightening of jaw, the tensing of small, powerful body,—and he bowed, tittering, while Adam, aware that he had betrayed his consuming anxiety, raged within himself therefor, yet watched the pale, mocking face before him serenely, none the less.
"Captain Adam, unhappy lover,—pray forgive me that, all unwitting, I have traduced a wife so dear to yourself! For I must now believe this—um—twice beloved wife is indeed poor Troy's beloved wife and sweetly naughty spouse. But—oh alas,—she will be,—ah woe,—the unhappy lady captured with him, and now prisoned, poor soul, to burn anon and not, alas, with ardent love for husband or lover, but mid cruel flame to expiate her pretty peccadilloes. Think on't, sir,—her tender-sweet body to fry ... to shrink and shrivel in the scorching fire——"
"Hold,—a mercy's sake—hold!" cried Adam, like one distraught and goaded past endurance. "Tell me ... where is she to die? Tell me!"
"Alas, sir!" Black Bartlemy paused to sigh, to shake languid head. "Alas that lady so fair, so warmly kind should so ... very warmly die! And where, sir? Oh, strange and woeful fact, where but at ... San Domingo!"
Now at this, Adam smiled grimly and, turning, beckoned where Smidge and the Indian Moa paced watchfully together hard-by. "Smidge," said he, "go fetch my rapier." Then, looking on Bartlemy. "Now," quoth he, "I know you for base liar would draw me to your design by contemptible trick. Let us go ashore lest I foul my deck with your rogue's blood!"
Black Bartlemy bowed, saying:
"Sweet gentleman, my boat awaits you."
"Sir, I prefer my own."
Thus presently, with John Fenn as his second and sheathed rapier beneath arm, Adam was rowed ashore. Here the principals, having bowed to each other, went side by side, their two seconds behind them (and a small, furtive shape behind these again), until they reached a place sufficiently remote from observation.
"This shall do, I think?" enquired Bartlemy, halting.
"Very well!" answered Adam, his glance upon the ground.
"Then," said Bartlemy, easing himself out of his upper garments, "the sooner the better, sir."
"Yes," answered Adam, doing the same.
And so, having saluted, they advanced against each other; scarcely had their blades crossed than, through their contact, Adam sensed all the latent power and cold ferocity of his smiling antagonist and prepared himself accordingly. For a long moment they stood motionless and watchful,—then Adam, making a tentative thrust, gave an opening, met the instant attack with violent parry and a counter-thrust so near that Bartlemy leapt out of distance and lowered his point; now, though he laughed, his eyes, sleepy no longer, showed wide and fierce, instead of languor was vigour and speed of movement backed by arrogant assurance and an indomitable will. All of which Adam was quick to note as they faced each other, each alert and strung to deadly purpose. Slowly they approached again, then with sudden, harsh cry, Black Bartlemy leapt, plying point and edge; back went Adam one pace and two, parried an upcut at his face, answering it with a thrust that checked his enemy, who put it by so narrowly his shirt was ripped open beneath his arm. Bartlemy laughed again, though breathlessly, but in that moment with false disengagement, his lightning point was through Adam's arm and, leaping back from instant counter-thrust, he bowed.
"First blood ... to me, sir!" he panted. "Shall this suffice?"
"By no means," answered Adam, shaking head at Smidge, who had leapt forward at sight of the blood; "indeed, Black Bartlemy, your play, being uncanonic, interests me. So, when you have fetched your breath and feel able, let us begin to fight."
"Eh, fight, sir? Must I kill you then?"
"Why, sir," answered Adam, his wistful glance now upon an inequality in the ground beyond his enemy, "this is as the Lord wills."