54 pages • 1 hour read
Rafael SabatiniA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Wandering around the plantation waiting for Blood, Nuttall meets Pitt. Bishop catches the men conversing, but Nuttall runs off before Bishop identifies him. Pitt claims ignorance of the other man’s name, which enrages Bishop into striking Pitt with a bamboo cane. Pitt retaliates, but two of Bishop’s enslaved men intervene and take him to the stocks for punishment. Everyone notices the approach of an English frigate in the bay far below the plantation, but their attention immediately returns to Pitt’s beating.
Bishop canes Pitt until the instrument splits into ribbons. He informs the nearly insensible man and surrounding onlookers that Pitt won’t receive water, food, or release from the stocks until he divulges the name of the visitor. Bishop leaves Pitt in the stocks, where his wounds, exposed to the sun and flies, torment him. Blood returns in time to give Pitt relief. Pitt tells Blood what happened. Bishop finds Blood aiding Pitt and castigates him for disobeying orders although he had not been present to hear them. Blood threatens that he will stop seeing patients if he is barred from treating Pitt. Bishop orders Blood to be whipped, but a thunderous sound halts all activity—cannon fire from the approaching frigate.