Evening star., 1924-11-28
CAPTAIN BLOOD
By RAFAEL SABATlNI
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

Finished He banged the table, his
| eyes suddenly fierce.
| I'll. come and talk to You again
| when there's less rum in your wits
| SAID Wolverstone, rising. meanwhile e
yell please to remember the tale I've
told. and say nothing that'll make
me out liar. They all believes me.
Port Royal. I've made 'em. II they
thought as how you'd taken the
Kings commission in earnest, and for
the purpose o doing as Morgan did,
ye guess what would follow"
Hell would follow" said the cap
tain. AN tha's all I'm At for"
"Ye're maudIin,' Wolverstone
growled 'Well talk again tomor-
row"
They did; but to little purpose.
either that day or on any day there
after while the rains-Which set in
that night-endured. Soon the
shrewd Wolverstone discovered that
rum was not what allied Blood. Rum
was in itself an effect, and not
by any means the cause Of the cap
tain's listless apathy. There was a
canker eating at his heart, and the
Old Wolf knew enough to make a
shrewd guess of It's nature. He
cursed all things that daggled petit
todlS, dlu, hHo"luS HIS "OElQ, III
ed for the sickness to pass.
But it did not pass When Blood
was not dicing or drinking in the
taverns of Tortuga. keeping com
pany that in this saner days he had
loathed, he was shut up in his cabin
aboard the ArabeIla, alone and un-
communicative. His friends at gov
ernment house. bewildered at this
change in him, sought to reclaim him.
Mademoiselle d'Ogeron, particularly
distressed, sent him almost daily in
yitations. to few of which he re-
sponded.
: Later, as the rainy season ap-
preached its end, he was sought by
his captains with proposals of re-
munerative raids on Spanish settle
ments. But to ali he manifested an
Indifference which, as the weeks
passed and the weather became
settled. begot nrst impatience and
then evaporation.
Christian. who commanded the
Clotho, came storming to him one
day. upbraiding him for his inaction,
and demanding that he should take
order about what was to do.
Go to the devil!" Blood said, when
he had heard him out
Christian departed fumius, and on
the morrow the Clotho weighed
anchor and sailed away, setting an
example of desertion from which the
loyalty of Blood's other captains
would soon be unable to restrain their
men.
Sometimes Blood asked himself
why had he come back to TortuEa
at all. Held fast in bondage by the
thought of Arabella and her scorn
of him for a thief and a pirate, he
had sworn that he had done with
buccaneering. Why, then, was he
here? That question he would answer
with another: Where else was he to
go? Neither backward nor forward
could he move. it seemed. $50
He was degenerating visibly. under
the eyes of all. He had entirely lost
tho almost foppish concern for his
appearance. and was grown careless
and slovenly in his dress. He allowed
a black beard to grow on cheeks
that had ever been so carefully
shaven; and tho long, thick black
hair. once 50 sedulously curled, hung
now in a lanll. untidy name about
a face that was changing from its
vigorous swarthtness to an unhealthy
saliow. whilst the blue eyes. that
had been so vivid and compelling,
were now dull and lackluster
= Wolverstone, the only one who held
the. clue to this degeneration. ven
-tured once-and once oniy-Ato beard
him frankly about It.
Lord, Peter! Is there never to
be no end to this?' the giant had
,growled. viii you spend your days
mopihg and swifling cause white
faced ninny in Port Royal IL have
none o. We? 'Sblood and 'Ounds! If
ye wants the wench, why the plague
doesn't ye- go and fetch herr"
The blue: eyes glared at him from
under the jet-black eyebrows. and
something Of their old fre began to
kindIe In them But Wolverstone
went on heedlessly.. -. .-S.s,s.s-.-.z--. -. 5.
t4'll be nice wi, q wench as long as
niceness be-Nthe. key to- her favour.
But sink me now re I'd rot myself In
rum on account Of anything that
wears a petticoat. That's not the
Old VOLTS way. II there's no other
expedition II tempt you. why not Port