The Fortunes of Captain Blood

Six stories return to Peter Blood's life at sea: a former physician now commanding buccaneers in the Caribbean. Spanish opponents, dangerous bargains and competing ambitions give him little room for error. A stronger ship is not always enough; success may depend on reading an enemy's intentions, waiting patiently or encouraging a mistaken judgment. Rafael Sabatini adds episodes from the same period as Captain Blood rather than taking the hero's biography beyond the first novel's ending. Adventure and irony accompany a continuing moral test. Blood's medical past and sense of honour remain important even in a world organised around plunder, where protecting his companions need not mean accepting an opponent's cruelty as his own rule.