I doubt if ye're worth the pains I've taken for
you."
He was lying. He had no doubt at all. Had he followed his own
wishes and instincts, he would certainly have strung the Colonel up,
and accounted it a meritorious deed. It was the thought of Arabella
Bishop that had urged him to mercy, and had led him to oppose the
natural vindictiveness of his fellow-slaves until he had been in
danger of precipitating a mutiny. It was entirely to the fact that
the Colonel was her uncle, although he did not even begin to suspect
such a cause, that he owed such mercy as was now being shown him.
"You shall have a chance to swim for it," Peter Blood continued.
"It's not above a quarter of a mile to the headland yonder, and with
ordinary luck ye should manage it. Faith, you're fat enough to
float. Come on! Now, don't be hesitating or it's a long voyage
ye'll be going with us, and the devil knows what may happen to you.
You're not loved any more than you deserve."
Colonel Bishop mastered himself, and rose. A merciless despot, who
had never known the need for restraint in all these years, he was
doomed by ironic fate to practise restraint in the very moment when
his feelings had reached their most violent intensity.
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