[Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini]@TWC D-Link book
Captain Blood

CHAPTER III
10/31

The face was very pale, save for the vivid colour of the full lips and the hectic flush on the rather high but inconspicuous cheek-bones.

It was something in those lips that marred the perfection of that countenance; a fault, elusive but undeniable, lurked there to belie the fine sensitiveness of those nostrils, the tenderness of those dark, liquid eyes and the noble calm of that pale brow.
The physician in Mr.Blood regarded the man with peculiar interest knowing as he did the agonizing malady from which his lordship suffered, and the amazingly irregular, debauched life that he led in spite of it--perhaps because of it.
"Peter Blood, hold up your hand!" Abruptly he was recalled to his position by the harsh voice of the clerk of arraigns.

His obedience was mechanical, and the clerk droned out the wordy indictment which pronounced Peter Blood a false traitor against the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Prince, James the Second, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland King, his supreme and natural lord.

It informed him that, having no fear of God in his heart, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil, he had failed in the love and true and due natural obedience towards his said lord the King, and had moved to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the kingdom and to stir up war and rebellion to depose his said lord the King from the title, honour, and the regal name of the imperial crown--and much more of the same kind, at the end of all of which he was invited to say whether he was guilty or not guilty.

He answered more than was asked.
"It's entirely innocent I am." A small, sharp-faced man at a table before and to the right of him bounced up.


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