ttlements.
But to all he manifested an indifference which, as the weeks passed
and the weather became settled, begot first impatience and then
exasperation.

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 fuming, 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 Tortuga 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.

He was degenerating visibly, under the eyes of all. He had entirely lost
the 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 the long, thick black hair,
once so sedulously curled, hung now in a lank, untidy mane about a face
that was changing from its vigorous swarthiness to an unhealthy sallow,
whilst the blue eyes, that had been so vivid and compelling, were now
dull and lacklustre.

Wolverstone, the only one who held the clue to this degeneration,
ventured once--and once only--to beard him frankly about it.

"Lord, Peter! Is there never to be no end to this?" the giant had
growled. "Will you spend your days moping and swilling 'cause a
white-faced ninny in Port Royal'll have none o' ye? 'Sblood and 'ounds!
If ye wants the wench, why the plague doesn't ye go and fetch her?"

The blue eyes glared at him from under the jet-black eyebrows, and
something of their old fire began to kindle in them. But Wolverstone
went on heedlessly.

"I'll be nice wi' a wench as long as niceness be the key to her favour.
But sink me now if I'd rot myself in rum on account of anything that
wears a petticoat. That's not the Old Wolf's way. If there's no other
expedition'll tempt you, why not Port Royal? What a plague do it matter
if it is an English settlement? It's commanded by Colonel Bishop, and
there's no lack of rascals in your company'd follow you to hell if