Quintspinner (47 page)

“C’mon, Captain!” Smith yelled, as he attempted to hoist the captain to his feet. The captain’s body sagged, a dead weight in his arms. Smith shouted desperately, still tugging upwards under the man’s armpits, “Up and into the boat with ya’!”

“Save yourselves!” Captain Crowell’s tone had once again taken on the hard edge of a commander. “The jolly’s too badly damaged,” he grunted between clenched teeth. “Clasp fast to the cork oak and leap into the sea. I have seen it float when all else sinks. It’s your only hope! Go!”

“But we can’t leave ya’, Sir!” screamed Smith trying to be heard above the roar of the storm.

“Go! Now! While you still have the chance!” He cut off any further objections with a somber announcement. “My back is broken. I cannot move my legs.” Captain Crowell was announcing his own death in the most simplest of terms. “It seems that it was not in my destiny to leave this vessel after all ….”

“Do something!” Cassie sobbed. “We can’t just leave him!”

“He’s as good as dead if his back’s broke!” Smith countered, ignoring Cassie’s pleading. “The most I can do is make it quick fer him.” He brandished a small blade and knelt beside his captain.

Captain Crowell nodded in immediate understanding, his eyes unflinchingly locked on Smith’s face.

“You have my gratitude, Mr. Smith.”

“No, wait! You can’t!” Cassie screamed and, grabbing Smith’s arm with all of her might, she wrenched it backwards.

“It’s a final help to the Captain, don’cha see?” Smith shouted, struggling to loosen his arm from her grip. “Fer God’s sake, woman! Let me do this fer the man!”

At that moment the sea took matters out of his hands, as a wall of water crashed over the deck again, sweeping them off their feet, and carrying them all through the break in the railing.

Aboard the
Mary Jane,
sailors staggered from their bunks and hammocks, and groped their way to the main deck, struggling to climb up the rat lines which vibrated and hummed fiercely in the grip of the howling gales. The lines threatened to shake them loose and send them spiraling to their deaths below. The sails, already reefed, still offered too much resistance to the oncoming blasts and men climbed and clung, desperate to make their way up to the heavy sheets of canvas, risking their lives in an effort to lash the escaping edges that flapped like great wings, securely to the yardarms.

Far below them, on the pitching surface of the sea, the jolly boat heaved and dropped, then rose and reared. Suddenly free of its mooring line to the
Mary Jane,
it began spinning and bobbing at her side like a cork caught in a river’s angry eddy. The wild sea had been whipped into great white frothy peaks alternating with dark troughs and the small boat slipped her nose nearly vertically downwards before she suddenly bucked backwards on the uplift. Her occupants hung on precariously, desperate to prevent being thrown over her sides.

“William!” Tess shrieked as his plummeting body hit the cresting water, piercing its surface and sinking under. Seconds later, his head broke the surface, only an arm’s length from the boat, and he gasped and kicked his face clear of the water. Even in the darkness Tess could see that William held one arm bent at a peculiar angle.

My God! Tess
panicked.
His arm is broken! He’ll drown right in front of me!

“Help me!” he pleaded and kicked furiously again, raising himself a few inches higher in the water.

“Grab hold!” Mr. Lancaster held an oar out to him, battling to stay within the tossing boat himself. Against the bottomless blackness of the ocean, it was nearly impossible to even see William.

“Take her!” William gasped, groping blindly with one hand for the end of the oar offered to him, just as a wave threatened to suck him out of reach.

“What?” The howl of the storm and the crash of the waves as they battered against the
Mary Jane
made it impossible to hear clearly if at all. “Take what?” Mr. Lancaster shouted, and then demanded, “Hang on with
both hands,
boy!” as he began to haul the length of the oar back towards the boat. Over head brilliant stabs of lightning sizzled and flared, the boom of its deafening thunder arriving almost simultaneously.

Drawn to the craft’s side, William coughed and retched on a mouthful of sea water. “Gerta!” he shouted. “Take her!” And from within the crook of his bent arm, Tess could see a small muzzle, the whites of the terrified goat’s eyes glinting in the light of the heavenly flame as the lightning crackled overhead.

All three of them reflexively reached out, grabbing at William and Gerta, but their combined weight on one side threatened to capsize the small boat. Clutching Gerta to her bosom, Mrs. Hanley immediately pushed back to the opposite side, counterbalancing the rescue efforts of Tess and Mr. Lancaster. Mr. Lancaster seized William by a handful of hair and Tess reached out, grabbing William’s outstretched hand. Together, they held him fast to the side of the boat, as a wave lifted William’s body up with its fresh surge over the craft’s edge. In a synchronized effort, they half pulled, half floated William over the top edge into the boat.

“Da’!” William struggled for breath as he lay on the bottom of the dory, almost totally immersed in water that was collecting there at an alarming rate. Sitting up, William looked around wildly. It was only then that any of them realized just how far they had become separated from the
Mary Jane.
Illuminated by another sheet of lightning, the stern of the great ship was barely visible to them.

“Da’!” William bellowed, scanning across the mountainous seas. “Da’!”

“Yer Da’ dinna make it off!” Mr. Lancaster’s voice was desperately strident, laboring with the effort to be heard above the storm, and strained with fear and grief for their situation. Prying open a small hatch to a secret compartment behind a second wall that William had built into the boat’s side, he reached inside and withdrew an armful of tin tankards, thrusting one into each pair of hands.

“Bail!” he ordered. “By God, this dammed sea has not yet claimed us! We must survive this night’s storm!”

Powered by both wind and waves, their boat was driven onward in the direction of a waiting land mass which lay guarded by the deadly ragged teeth of its protective reef. In spite of their most frantic efforts, water poured over the edges and continued to engulf them waist high. For nearly an hour they bailed, their arms becoming heavy and slow with fatigue, their muscles numb from the lashing cold of the wind and water.

Lightning crackled overhead again setting the gems in Tess’s ring to glow. Staring at them, she felt a sense of grim satisfaction.
At least I foiled Edward in his quest for the rings. For all of his fine training and wealth, he is just a common pirate in a gentleman’s disguise.
Tess’s thoughts began to drift, her body too chilled and her mind too tired to be frightened any more.

The anticipated warmth of Port Royal in Jamaica played like a daydream in her head. There were strange animals and brightly colored birds there, her father had told her, with the land being covered by a carpet of green lushness, the likes of which she could not even begin to imagine. As her father had talked about it, and had spoken about their new home-to-be, with its palm trees, soft sands, and gentle turquoise waters, it had been the sunshine and the pleasure of the warm seas that Tess had been looking forward to the most ….

Dimly aware of her present surroundings, she was not alarmed but only vaguely annoyed when the water-laden boat gave way beneath them, spilling them out into the icy clutches of the roiling water.

A crushing wave broke over them, pounding down upon them, sucking each of them deeper into its plexus.
It’s supposed to be warm!
she thought sullenly as she sank.

Many ships, great and small, met their deaths when pitted against the enormous power of seas churned by such devil winds. Often capsizing on the open water or being driven into and torn asunder by the ragged reefs which lined the shorelines, the great vessels and their weighty treasures of gold, silver, ivory, jewels, and human cargo frequently sank. Any bits of wrecks which washed ashore were quickly scavenged and salvaged by the island inhabitants who regularly scoured the beaches in the aftermath of such storms.

On this particular morning, those brought to the water’s edge by the potential opportunity of finding useable items–canvas or wood scraps, perhaps even a surviving cask of rum or two–crept in silence not wishing to be seen, darting among the predawn shadows of the lush vegetation. Between this and the ocean’s edge, a stretch of fine powdery sand had been blown into finger dunes pointing inland. Palm trees rose above the more dense undergrowth, their fronds rustling in the remaining breezes. The sun had not yet risen above the horizon, although a pink hue heralded its arrival.

A bare foot nudged at a mound half buried in the storm-strewn sand, sending a stream of young land crabs scuttling out from beneath the mound. The mound remained unresponsive. The only movement came from the flush of the waves which rocked it from side to side. Reaching down, a pair of hands rolled the mound over and the owner of the bare foot stepped back in surprise.

Barely aware that someone had rolled her over, Tess sucked in a large shuddering breath and momentarily sank back into the safety of unconscious exhaustion. An incessant tugging at her finger roused her–the grip was rough and strong and the pain was intensely acute. Her finger’s joints felt like they were going to dislocate.

Edward!
Her heart pounded frantically.
He survived!
A voice screamed in her head.
He’s trying to steal my ring!

Too numb to cry out, she curled her fingers into a fist and attempted to pull her hand out of the strange grasp but her fingers were pried open and splayed out upon a piece of exposed sandstone. She blinked and tried to clear her vision. Shafts of the early morning sun streaked over the horizon and scalded her salt-burned eyes. Through her watery vision Tess saw the flash of a knife blade and realized,
My God! He’s going to cut my finger off to get the ring!

A scream strangled in her throat just as a familiar voice rang out.

“Leave her alone, you son of a bitch! If you even touch her, I will kill you!”

For just a split second, the grip on Tess’s hand let go and she twisted away, pulling her hand free and rolling onto her stomach before struggling onto her knees. Looking up, she saw William, a pistol held steadily in either hand and both leveled at her attacker. Looking back she was stunned to see, not Edward, but a man, in tattered dungarees, with skin as black as charcoal. He held a broad-bladed machete in one hand and even from his knees, stared steadily at William, as though gauging the threat.

Shadows in the underbrush behind William suddenly merged into human forms as three more people stepped forward, their skin colors an artist’s mixed palette of gilded browns to inky sable. Steadily they advanced on Tess and William, encircling them in an ever tightening ring. Outnumbered, William held the pistols at arm’s length and slowly turned on the spot, pivoting around on his damaged and stiffened knee.

“When I say so, you run!” he whispered to Tess out of the corner of his mouth.

“Where did you get the guns?’’ Tess softly inquired.

“I got two blades as well,” he replied softly. “They’re from the false compartment in the boat’s wall. It was the sturdiest section.” William continued in a hushed tone. “It survived and washed up on shore alongside me just beyond that spit of land over there.”