Mademoiselle d'Ogeron,
particularly distressed, sent him almost daily invitations, to few
of which he responded.
Later, as the rainy season approached its end, he was sought by his
captains with proposals of remunerative raids on Spanish settlements.
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.
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