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"For a forced man, you handled that gun pretty thefty," said Skank, behind Shandy. "Turncoat son of a bitch." Shandy heard him spit.
The blood rushed to Shandy's face as he remembered the day Skank had roughed up Jim Bonny to save Shandy from a - real or imaginary - magical attack, and he wanted to face Skank now and plead with him to remember the circumstances of his recruitment three and a half weeks ago ... but after a moment he just said quietly to the nearest armed sailor, "Can I take another step forward?"
"Aye," the sailor said. "Slow."
Shandy did, listening to the pirates behind him moodily arguing about whether he was a treacherous coward or just a pragmatic one. Looking out over the starboard quarter he could see the returning ship's boat, and he squinted against the glitter of sunlight on the wet oars, trying to see if it was indeed Beth Hurwood huddled in the stern.
The captain raised his telescope again and scrutinized the boat. "It's no one named Elizabeth," he said drily.
Damn me, Shandy thought, then she's still with them. Why in hell didn't she think of jumping overboard? Well, it's not my business any longer - it's for people like this fellow, or some other Navy captain, to go and rescue her. I'm for Haiti. And perhaps Friend and her father mean her no harm.
He grinned bleakly at the willful naivete of that thought; and then he allowed himself to remember, gingerly and one at a time, the stories he'd heard about Blackbeard - the time the man decided that his crew would benefit from spending some time in "a hell of our own," and so had everyone go below deck, where he gleefully lit a number of pots of brimstone, and at pistol point prevented anyone from leaving before half the crew was unconscious and in real danger of suffocation, and even then Blackbeard himself had been the last to emerge into the fresh air ... though it was regarded as just another of his barbaric whims at the time, the ritualistic nature of the event was noted later, and one drunkenly indiscreet bocor had hinted that it had been a necessary renewal of Blackbeard's hunsi kanzo status, and not entirely successful because none of the crew had actually died of it; and Shandy recalled his rumored dealings with the genuinely dreaded loa known as Baron Samedi, whose domain is the graveyard and whose secret drogue is low-smoldering fire, which was why Blackbeard always braided lit slow matches into his hair and massive beard before going into any risky encounter; and he had heard of the superficially insane but sorcerously explainable uses to which the legendary pirate put any unfortunate woman that he could get linked to himself in wedlock ... and Shandy thought of Beth's futile courage, and the innately cheerful nature she'd only been able to indulge for half an hour on the Carmichael's poop deck three and a half weeks ago.
Midshipman Nourse reappeared from below with a bound journal or log and clambered up the companion ladder to where the captain stood.
"Thank you," said the captain, taking the volume from him and tucking the telescope under his arm. He leafed through the pages for a couple of minutes and then looked down at Shandy with somewhat less sternness in his craggy face. "They do mention a John Chandagnac who was forced to join." He flipped to another page. "You boarded the Carmichael when and where?"
"On the morning of the third of June, at the Batsford Company Dock in Bristol."
"And ... let's see ... what ship sailed with you through the St. George Channel?"
"The Mershon. They turned north past Mizen Head, bound for Galway and the Aran Islands."
For a moment the captain lowered the book and stared at Shandy in reappraisal. "Hm ... " He turned to the page he'd been reading before. "Yes, and the Carmichael survivors mention the attack by Chandagnac upon Davies ... quite a brave thing that seems to have been ... "
"Hah," said Skank scornfully. "Took him by surprise. Davies wasn't even looking."
"Thank you, young man," the captain said to Skank with a frosty smile. "You've effectively confirmed this man's claim. Mr. Chandagnac, you may step away from those brigands and come up here."
Shandy sighed and relaxed, and realized that he'd been tense for weeks without being aware of it, living among people for whom savage violence was a casual thing. He crossed to the companion ladder and climbed up to the higher deck. The officers standing there made room, staring at him curiously.
"Here," said the captain, handing him the telescope. "See if you can identify our swimmer."
Shandy glanced down at the boat that was rocking closer on the blue water, and he didn't even have to look through the glass. "It's Davies," he said quietly.
The captain turned to the young midshipman again. "Keep those men where they are, Mr. Nourse," he said, pointing to the dispirited rabble around the capstan, "but have Davies brought to me in the great cabin. Mr. Chandagnac, I'll want you present, too, to witness Davies' statement."
Oh God, thought Shandy. "Very well, captain."
The captain started toward the ladder, then paused. "It will be a few minutes before the prisoner is brought aboard, Mr. Chandagnac. The purser could give you some clothes from the slop chest, if you'd like to get out of that ... costume."
"Thank you, captain, I'd like that." Standing among all these officers, with their sober blue uniforms and brass buttons and epaulettes, Chandagnac had begun to feel like a clown in his red breeches and gold-worked belt - though such dress hadn't been at all inappropriate on New Providence Island.
Behind and below him he heard Skank's disgusted snicker.
A little later, feeling much more civilized in a blue-checked shirt, canvas breeches, gray woolen stockings and a pair of shoes, Shandy sat at one end of a long table in the great cabin and stared out the stern window - it was too hig to be called a port or scuttle - the bull's-eye leaded glass pane of which had been propped open to let the breeze into the cabin. For the first time, he wondered what he'd do after prosecuting his uncle. Go back to England and get another position as an accountant? He shook his head doubtfully. England seemed chilly and far away.
Then, and the thought soothed a guilt-cramp that had been troubling his mind ever since the swimmer had been identified as Davies, Shandy knew what he would do: he'd work hard to get his uncle arrested, convicted and imprisoned as soon as possible, and then he'd use the - surely considerable - amount of money that would justly accrue to him to rescue Beth Hurwood. He ought to be able to hire a boat, a Caribbean-tempered captain and a tough, bounty-hungry crew ...
He heard boots clumping beyond the bulkhead, and then the door opened and two officers led Philip Davies into the cabin. The pirate chief's arms were bound behind his back and the left side of his sea-wet shirt was glisteningly blotted with blood from the shoulder to the waist, and his face, half-hidden by tangled wet hair, was paler and more drawn than usual - but he grinned as he maneuvered himself into a chair, and when he noticed Shandy he winked at him. "Restored to the shop window, eh?"
"That's right," Shandy said evenly.
"No chips? Paint still bright?"
Shandy didn't answer. The two officers sat down on either side of Davies.
The door opened again and the captain and Midshipman Nourse walked in. Nourse had pen, inkwell and paper, and sat down beside Shandy, while the captain ponderously sat down across the table from Davies. Each Navy man wore, evidently as part of the uniform, a sword and pistol.
