Fragrant Flower (17 page)

She was aware of what Colonel Stewart, whom her father had killed, had intended to do with the daughter of their
dhirzi
after he had beaten her.

It was not just the first or second time this had happened, and the whispers about his behaviour had been heard by Azalea even though her mother had tried to protect her from the knowledge of such evil.

And because she talked with the Indian servants she had known that to them love was a beautiful thing, a gift from the gods.

They worshipped the act of fertility – she had known what the phallic symbols on the Temples meant and the little shrines of the
lingam
by the wayside at which peasant women left pathetic little offerings of flowers and rice.

Because she had spent most of her life in India, the beauty and the wonder of Krishna, the God of Love, was to her all that love could mean when a man and a woman belonged to each other and became one.

The Indians were intrinsically moral. Their women were kept in purdah and the purity of Indian married life was unassailable.

That was what Azalea herself had hoped to find one day in marriage.

What lay ahead of her now, if Kai Yin was to be believed, was not marriage with purity, but something foul and so degrading that she could not even imagine the depths of humiliation to which it would subject her.

“Kai Yin is right,” she told herself. “I too must die!”

Every nerve in her body shrank from the thought! Then she knew that if any man even kissed her after she had been kissed by Lord Sheldon, she would feel unclean.

She had loved him from the first moment he had taken her in his arms by surprise, when she had been unable to move, unable to struggle or to run away.

It was love when one belonged instinctively not only in mind and body but also in spirit to a man. Love was the indefinable magic which drew two people together as if they had been part of each other in a past existence and were spiritually indivisible.

“I have belonged to him before,” Azalea told herself now, “and therefore I can never belong to any other man.”

She and Kai Yin sat silent on the dirty sacking and they were both in their own ways thinking how they must die.

‘Supposing I only wounded myself?’ Azalea questioned. Then she thought it would be stupid to try to kill herself by the same method that Kai Yin would use.

The Chinese were experts at suicide.

Kai Yin would know the right place in the body in which to insert a knife so that death would be instantaneous, but for Azalea there was a better way.

When they took her up on deck she would throw herself into the sea and hope that she would not be rescued.

Most Chinese could not swim, and it was a tradition amongst seamen of all nations that if their ship foundered it was best to drown quickly and not prolong the agony by trying to keep afloat.

‘I will throw myself over the side of the ship!’ Azalea thought. ‘By the time the pirates realise what has happened I shall have drowned!’

She could not swim. Her uncle would have been horrified at the thought of either the twins or herself being seen undressed in public.

In India it had not been safe to bathe in the great water tanks which stood outside every village.

‘I shall die quickly!’ Azalea told herself and tried to be consoled by the thought that although she would never see Lord Sheldon again he would remember her as he had seen her yesterday.

“You are beautiful!” he had said in the garden, and she could feel again the quiver that had gone through her at his words.

“Can you really believe,” he had said later, “that we can walk away from each other and forget what our lips have said not in words but with a kiss?”

She would never forget as long as she lived, and perhaps he would remember her sometimes in the future – when he stood in another garden as beautiful as Mr. Chang’s, or when he saw a blue magpie wing its way into the sunshine.

“Let us hope they bring us luck!” he had said.

But there was now no luck, Azalea thought, where she was concerned. There was only death, with the green waves closing over her head as she sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Because she could hardly bear her own thoughts, she rose restlessly to walk once again across the cabin to the porthole.

She hoped to have a last sight of the junk even though it was in flames, but now the pirate ship had tacked from side to side to get the wind and there was nothing to be seen except in the distance the outline of an island. It was green and mountainous, but Azalea had no idea where it was.

They might, she thought, be swinging back on their tracks and going towards China – or again, it might be to one of the many islands they must pass before they reached the ocean.

Kai Yin did not speak and Azalea thought that she was perhaps praying to
Kuan Yin
, the Goddess of Mercy.

“Oh, God, send us help,” Azalea prayed. “Even now you could save us from what lies – ahead.”

She felt as if her prayer was weak and ineffective. Then she remembered that her mother had always told her that prayers from the heart were always heard.

They had been visiting a Temple in India, and Azalea who was very young at the time, had watched the women in their colourful saris praying at the shrine of the Elephant God.

“How can they think that funny god with the Elephant’s head can hear them, Mama?” she had asked.

“It is the prayer that matters, Azalea,” her mother answered. “When a prayer comes from the heart, there is always Someone who will listen – Someone too big and too wonderful for us to understand. But He is there! Although He may appear in different forms to different people, God is there for everyone.”

Azalea had been too young to comprehend exactly what her mother had meant at the time.

But afterwards, when she had grown to understand a little of the Indian religions and realised the sacrifices the Hindus, the Moslems and the Buddhists made for the gods they worshipped, she began to understand.

Now she was sure that
Kuan Yin
, the Goddess of Mercy to whom Kai Yin was praying, and the God to whom she herself prayed were one.

“Please – please help us,” she prayed again and imagined her prayer being carried like the wings of a bluebird up into the sky above them. There was a sudden explosion so loud that the whole ship seemed to vibrate with it.

Azalea gave a little scream and clasped her arms round Kai Yin as if to protect her. The Chinese girl clung to her.

“What – happens?” she asked in a frightened whisper.

Any answer Azalea might have made was drowned by the noise of a gun being fired from the deck above them, and this time the sound was deafening.

Again there was an explosion, and Azalea knew that it was made by a big gun which was attacking them.

The shell had not hit the ship, but had exploded in the water beside it. She heard the splash of the heavy spray on the deck and then the water washing overboard, so that it slid down over the port-hole.

Releasing Kai Yin, Azalea ran across the cabin. She looked out and gave a shrill cry.

“It is a ship! A British ship!”

For a moment Kai Yin looked at her as if she could not take in what she had said.

“I can see the White Ensign!” Azalea cried. “We are safe! Kai Yin – we are safe!”

“They kill us!” Kai Yin said. “They kill us before British sailors come on board!”

There was a note of terror in her voice which told Azalea that she believed what she was saying.

It was quite likely, she thought. The pirates would be tried for piracy but, if there was also a charge of kidnapping, their sentence would be harsher.

Even as she thought it, she heard feet coming down the companionway and rushed to the cabin door.

There was a bolt on the inside, although not a very adequate one – just a flat piece of wood which slotted into a wooden lock fixed on the wall.

She jammed it home.

She had only just done so when she heard the bolt on the other side being dragged back and the door was shaken as someone tried to open it. Azalea put out both her hands and pressed herself against it.

She realised that she had little strength compared with the man who was trying to reach them. At the same time, combined with the bolt, she might be able to hold the door closed until the ship was boarded.

The sounds up above grew deafening. After a short exchange of rifle shots, she could hear orders being given in Cantonese, but by a very English-sounding voice.

The man on the other side of the door was shaking it furiously.

Azalea fancied that he put his shoulder to it, but although the bolt creaked, it held. Then suddenly she heard him run away, his feet padding over the boards.

There was the sound of heavy footsteps descending the companionway, and a very English voice said,

“Here is the cargo! Opium, as I expected!”

Azalea felt herself sagging against the door.

Even after the assailant on the other side had gone, she had still pressed with all her strength against the bare wood, terrified that at the last second the bolt would give and he would burst in upon them.

She was quite certain he would have carried in his hand one of the long, carved knives that all the pirates wore in their belts.

Kai Yin had not stirred.

She was still sitting motionless on the sacking, looking like a flower in her coloured tunic, and her face was very pale as if she could not realise or understand that they were safe and was still preparing herself for the moment when she must die.

“You had better get this stuff out of here,” Azalea heard a man say outside. “And see if there is anyone in those cabins.”

With a hand that shook Azalea pulled back the bolt and opened the door.

Outside stood an officer in white uniform looking at the great pile of chests which had been taken from Mr. Chang’s junk.

Beside him stood several Naval ratings in their white jumpers and blue trousers, their round, white-topped caps on their heads.

They all turned to look at Azalea and as they did so someone came down the companionway.

As he reached the bottom Azalea turned her head. For a moment it was impossible to move.

“Azalea!” he exclaimed.

She ran towards him and felt his arms go round her. It was like reaching Heaven. Her prayers had been answered and she was safe!

As
H.M.S. Fury
carried them back to Hong Kong, sitting in a cabin with Lord Sheldon, Azalea learnt what had happened.

Next door Kai Yin was sitting beside a bunk on which Mr. Chang lay with his arm bandaged.

It hardly seemed possible that he should be alive after Azalea had known that the pirates had set the junk on fire, having looted everything they considered valuable.

“It was the burning junk we saw first,” Lord Sheldon told her. “One of the sailors drew our attention to it and Captain Marriott was immediately suspicious that it might be the work of pirates.

“‘They loot and burn,’ he told me, ‘and unless we are lucky enough to see the junk in flames, there is no evidence to connect it with them once they have the cargo in their own ship.’”

“We steamed towards the burning junk,” Lord Sheldon continued, “and as we drew nearer to it Captain Marriott said, ‘I believe that is Mr. Chang’s junk. I have always admired it. I think it is one of the most attractive in the whole of Victoria harbour!’”

Lord Sheldon’s arm tightened around Azalea as he said,

“It was then that I became afraid.”

“You thought I might be on board?”

“You do such unpredictable things, that nothing surprises me!” he replied. “And I had the feeling that sooner or later you would find it impossible to resist sailing in the harbour and seeing the beauty of the islands.”

“Why were you on this cruiser?” Azalea enquired.

“I arranged several days ago to inspect some of the British fighting vessels. Captain Marriott was deputed by the Governor to escort me. We had luncheon on the battleship, visited two gunboats, and were just returning to the harbour. Thank God I found you in time!”

Azalea turned her face against his shoulder.

“Kai Yin thought that as the pirates had kidnapped us they would – sell us,” she whispered.

“You must forget what might have happened,” Lord Sheldon said quietly. “It is something which could occur only once in a lifetime. Piracy has been put down so successfully by the Navy in the last few years that they were saying at luncheon there is really very little for the gunboats to do these days.”

“The pirates were very – frightening.”

“They are deliberately aggressive,” Lord Sheldon explained. “It makes the Chinese willing to do anything that is demanded of them without argument.”

“But they shot at the sailors on Mr. Chang’s junk.”

“They killed one man and they will be punished.”

“Why did they wound Mr. Chang?”

“He resisted them, so they fired at him. As it happened the bullet only wounded him in the shoulder. Then he was clever enough to realise that the best thing he could do was to pretend to be dead. He fell down on the deck and closed his eyes. After that they paid no further attention to him!”

“Thank goodness!” Azalea exclaimed, thinking how unhappy Kai Yin had been.

“When the pirates had left, Mr. Chang tried to put out the flames with his uninjured arm,” Lord Sheldon went on.

“That was brave!”

“Very brave! And it was very fortunate that he was alive, because otherwise we might not have been in such a hurry to follow the pirates and save both you and Mrs. Chang.”

“What happened to the rest of the crew?” Azalea asked.

“We found them tied up on the deck of the pirate ship. I imagine most of them, would, to save themselves, have joined the pirates, who are always looking for able seamen. Those who refuse to do so seldom live to tell the tale!”

Azalea gave a little shiver.

“It has been a terrible experience for you,” Lord Sheldon said, “but I want you to be sensible and determine to put it out of your mind. As I have said, it will never happen to you again, and the pirate gang will undoubtedly pay the price for their crimes.”