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“Not yet,” he replied, his spirits sinking when the ship changed course, but then she tacked and made straight for them. “Now, he sees us,” he said, sitting beside her and putting his arm around her shoulders.
“Can you make out the flag?”
He waited until the vessel had dropped anchor and he was certain. “Gran Colombia.”
They clung to each other, watching the approach of the rowboat lowered by the galley. When it came alongside the raft, he was relieved to see the sailors wore the uniform of the Gran Colombian navy. “Not pirates,” he told Heidi with a grin as he sliced through the rope binding her to the flimsy craft.
“Godt,” she replied. “Remember you’re Danish.”
“Ja.”
Two sailors held out their arms for Heidi. “Cuidado, señora,” one of them warned as they helped her into their boat.
“Dansk,” she replied.
Maximiliano freed the portmanteau and passed it to the sailors, then accepted their help to board the rowboat. “Gracias,” he said in heavily accented Spanish, drawing Heidi closer as the sailors began the short journey back to the galley.
He took a last look at the waterlogged raft, doubting it would have carried them much further.
Gone For Good
Heidi shivered, despite the heavy blanket a sailor had given her. “I’m nervous,” she admitted to Maximiliano who sat beside her in the captain’s cabin.
“Don’t worry,” he replied. “By now they’ll have examined everything in your luggage. The pink bloomers alone will convince the captain you’re Danish.”
Despite his attempt to ease her worries, she felt his body tense when the Venezuelan captain entered the cabin accompanied by two sailors.
“You say you are Danes,” he said in Spanish.
“We are Torsten and Heidi Jakobsen from Sankt Thomas,” Maximiliano replied in the same language, still with a heavy Danish accent. “I worked for the Danish West India Company.”
“The reason for the brand on the pistol.”
“The company issued the weapon to me when the British attack was imminent.”
“And you managed to escape from the Danish island.”
“We were aboard theHeklawhen she was attacked by pirates near Culebra.”
Heidi took the captain’s thoughtful nod as a sign their story was credible, but her throat tightened when the Venezuelan said, “I understand it was the infamous Lázaro who captured theHekla.”
“Ja,” Maximiliano replied. “He took us prisoner aboard his boat, but the ship was wrecked during the hurricane and we found ourselves marooned on an uninhabited island.”
“Just the two of you?”
“Ja. No other survivors.”
“You were lucky.”
“Thanks be to God,” Maximiliano said. “My wife is pregnant and God was watching over her.”
Heidi struggled not to laugh at her husband’s pious tone.
“And how did you get the pirate’s pistol?”
“Found it in the wreck.”
A long silence followed. The captain stroked his pointed beard, clearly deciding whether to believe them or not.
