About him all was peace.
The signs of the day's battle had been effaced, the decks had been
swabbed, and order was restored above and below. A group of men
squatting about the main hatch were drowsily chanting, their
hardened natures softened, perhaps, by the calm and beauty of the
night. They were the men of the larboard watch, waiting for eight
bells which was imminent.
Captain Blood did not hear them; he did not hear anything save the
echo of those cruel words which had dubbed him thief and pirate.
Thief and pirate!
It is an odd fact of human nature that a man may for years possess
the knowledge that a certain thing must be of a certain fashion,
and yet be shocked to discover through his own senses that the fact
is in perfect harmony with his beliefs. When first, three years
ago, at Tortuga he had been urged upon the adventurer's course which
he had followed ever since, he had known in what opinion Arabella
Bishop must hold him if he succumbed. Only the conviction that
already she was for ever lost to him, by introducing a certain
desperate recklessness into his soul had supplied the final impulse
to drive him upon his rover's course.
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