Mississippi Jack: Being an Account of the Further Waterborne Adventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman, Fine Lady, and Lily of the West (60 page)

We come together again, and as we part, I hear, from high up in the rigging, "Hey! It's Puss! Puss-in-Boots, herself!"

Uh-oh...

Though Captain Blackstone has so far been most accommodating of young love, I know the prospect of a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound reward for my capture would sway almost any man, so...

"Good-bye, Jaimy," I say, planting one more kiss on his face, and then I hop up on the rail. "Gotta run."

I dive over the side and into the warm water of the Caribbean. I hit clean and open my eyes in the clear, azure underwater blue. I see the sleek hull of the
Nancy B.
up ahead and I kick my way toward her.

My long American journey is over.

"Three fathoms," says Solomon Freeman from the bow. He coils up the line and throws the lead again. "Mark twain," he says, measuring out the two-fathom distance on the line.

"Drop anchor," I say, and Jim Tanner lets it go. We back the sails and wait. The anchor holds and the
Nancy B. Alsop
is back in Massachusetts, the place where her keel was laid, the place of her birth. The anchor flag of Faber Shipping, Worldwide flies proudly from her masthead.

We are moored at the mouth of the Neponset River, off the town of Quincy, wherein lies Dovecote, the estate of the Family Trevelyne.

I felt it best to land here, where I would feel safe from capture. Jim Tanner will get the
Morning Star
in the water and so convey himself, his wife, and Chloe to Boston, and he will also see Ezra Pickering so as to find lodging for all and to dispose of our cargo.

I climb down into the
Evening Star
—yes, we were able to
bring her aboard the
Nancy B.
as lifeboat—and then I am rowed to the shore. I then begin the walk up to the great house at Dovecote. I get halfway there, when I see a very familiar figure, her black dress swirling about, her arms outstretched, come running down to me.