“You address me as ‘sir’, and you do not contradict me. You heard my promise? I shall carry it out. I can, and I shall.”
In a ship detached far from superior authority there was nothing a captain might not do, and the doctor knew it. And with Hornblower’s grim face before him and those remorseless eyes staring into his the doctor could not doubt the possibility. Hornblower was trying to keep his expression set hard, and to pay no attention to the internal calculations that persisted in maintaining themselves inside him. There might be terrible trouble if the Admiralty ever heard he had flogged a warranted doctor, but then the Admiralty might never hear of an incident in the distant Levant. And there was the other doubt — with McCullum once dead, so that nothing could bring him to life, Hornblower could not really believe he would torture a human being to no practical purpose. But as long as Eisenbeiss did not guess that, it did not matter.
“That is an quite clear to you now, doctor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then my order is that you start making your arrangements now.”
It was a really great surprise to Hornblower when Eisenbeiss still hesitated. He was about to speak more sharply still, cutting into the feverish gestures of the big hands, when Eisenbeiss spoke again.
“Do you forget something, sir?”
“What do you think I have forgotten?” asked Hornblower, playing for time instead of flatly refusing to listen to any arguments — proof enough that he was a little shaken by Eisenbeiss’s persistence.
“Mr. McCullum and I — we are enemies,” said Eisenbeiss.
It was true that Hornblower had forgotten that. He was so engrossed with his chessboard manipulation of human pieces that he had overlooked a vital factor. But he must not admit it.
“And what of that?” he asked coldly, hoping his discomfiture was not too apparent.
“I shot him,” said Eisenbeiss. There was a vivid gesture by the big right hand that had held the pistol, which enabled Hornblower to visualize the whole duel. “What will he say if I attend him?”
“Whose was the challenge?” asked Hornblower, still playing for time.
“He challenged me,” said Eisenbeiss. “He said — he said I was no Baron, and I said he was no gentleman. ‘I will kill you for that,’ he said, and so we fought.”
Eisenbeiss had certainly said the thing that would best rouse McCullum’s fury.
“You are convinced you are a Baron?” asked Hornblower — curiosity urged him to ask the question as well as the need for time to reassemble his thoughts. The Baron drew himself up as far as the deck‑beams over his head allowed.
“I know I am, sir. My patent of nobility is signed by His Serene Highness himself.”
“When did he do that?”
“As soon as — as soon as we were alone. Only His Serene Highness and I managed to cross the frontier when Bonaparte’s men entered Seitz‑Bunau. The others all took service with the tyrant. It was not fit that His Serene Highness should be attended only by a bourgeois. Only a noble could attend him to bed or serve his food. He had to have a High Chamberlain to regulate his ceremonial, and a Secretary of State to manage his foreign affairs. So His Serene Highness ennobled me — that is why I bear the title of Baron and gave me the high offices of State.
“On your advice?”
“I was the only adviser he had left.”
This was very interesting and much as Hornblower had imagined it, but it was not the point. Hornblower was more ready now to face the real issue.
“In the duel,” he asked, “you exchanged shots?”
“His bullet went past my ear,” answered Eisenbeiss.
“Then honour is satisfied on both sides,” said Hornblower, more to himself than to the doctor.
Technically that was perfectly correct. An exchange of shots, and still more the shedding of blood, ended any affair of honour. The principals could meet again socially as if there had been no trouble between them. But to meet in the relative positions of doctor and patient might be something different. He would have to deal with that difficulty when it arose.