To the Far Blue Mountains

"Aye, so you did, but there's a voice louder than mine that says back you go, so into the irons it is."

"Sorry," Feghany said to me, "but it's no doing of the guard's. Remember him.

Later he may take them off, if you've a bit of the necessary."

"Now hold up there!" the guard protested. "Not so loud!"

Feghany slapped me on the shoulder and something cold touched my neck below the collar. "There! Don't worry now!"

When they had gone I put my hand inside my collar. A thin bit of metal. A Kate with which to pick the lock.

There was no time to waste. I was bound for a dungeon and more questions. I was headed for torture that could only end in death.

So what was to be done must be done tonight.

I heard the yowlings and screams that came from the cells and the larger rooms below where the prisoners mingled.

I checked the bars at the window again. Rain and wind had done their worst with the exposed walls, and some of the bars were loose in their sockets.

I was devoutly grateful. Gripping the pick in my hand, I went to work to break away the stone, scratching away with my lock-pick at the crumbling edge of the socket.

Then, putting down the pick, I took the bars in my two hands and strained, pushing them out. The bars gave a little, then held. I worked longer, then hearing footsteps in the passage I sat down on my bench, leaning my elbows on my knees, my back to the door. There was a momentary pause outside my door as the guard peered through the tiny window, then went on.

Once more I returned to the bars. If I could but remove two, at most three, of the uprights, and one of the horizontal bars, I could get myself through. I worked, picked away very carefully. Then I tested one of the bars. My strength served me well now, for the bar gave. Then as I exerted more pressure, the bottom moved outward.

Very carefully I extracted the top from its socket and placed it on the floor.

The second bar was more stubborn. Again and again I strained and worked at it.

At last the bottom came loose and it joined its mate on the floor between myself and the door.

The horizontal bar was not so deeply set, and the grains of rock came loose each time I scraped with the pick. The wall was old and crumbling. By this time I was soaked with sweat and my knuckles were scraped and torn. It was after midnight before I had removed the third bar, and by that time the prison was quiet.

Carefully, I moved the heavy bench under the window. I sacrificed my coat to cover the irons on my bed and give some shape of a man lying. My foot was on the bench when suddenly a key rattled and the door behind me opened.

"Ah!" It was Henry Croppie. "Caught!"

He sprang to seize me from behind, but his foot landed on the iron bars which rolled under him. His feet shot up and he fell.

Turning from the bench, I met him as he rose to come at me, and I hit him.

My fist was a hard one. It caught him on the nose and I felt the bone give way.

He went almost down, then lunged up, reaching for me with his hands.

Seizing one of his hands, I wrenched it quickly behind his back and shoved up in a hammerlock, an old wrestling trick. He started to cry out and I slammed him down upon the floor and knocked him out.

There was nothing for it. To try rushing away down the passage would but lead me to another heavy door, and to more guards. The window it must be.

Leaping up on the bench, I thrust myself through and pulled my legs up while behind me I heard grunts and spitting and coughing amid the rattle of chains.

I looked down, and the stomach went out of me. The wall on which I pinned my hopes was at least twenty feet down and scarcely two feet wide. I might drop and reach it, but the chances were greater that I would slip off. For a moment I hesitated. To slip from that wall meant a drop of at least thirty feet. I looked up.

The edge of the roof was scarcely four feet above my window top. Gripping the bars I turned my back to the outer night and stood up on the outside sill, shifting my hands higher. Gripping a bar with one hand, I reached up, let go the gripping hand, and caught the roofs edge. Very carefully I pulled myself up and over the edge, to lie gasping on the leads.

Sweat was dripping from me. I rubbed my hands as dry as might be and began to edge myself along the leads. It was very wet and slippery, and if I started to slide there was small hope for me but death on the rocks almost sixty feet below.

Edging along, I reached the far edge of the building. And there just below me was another leaded roof, not six feet down. I went over the edge and I ran along the peak of the roof for at least fifty feet. There was a small attic window and I tested it with my hands. The wood frame was old and crumbling and I managed to force the window, and stepped into what seemed like an empty room, musty with long dead air. A faint light came from another window. I crossed and opened the door into a hallway.

If I was still within the bounds of Newgate it must be the quarters of the gaoler. Yet I believed the building was one adjoining the prison. At the end of the hall the door was shut and tight. I could force it in the time allowed me.

Turning swiftly, I went down the hall to a window at the far end. In a moment I was once more in the cool night air with a faint mist of rain on my face, and I was on the leads of another roof.

Some distance off, on still another roof, was a lower window. I went swiftly along the roof. Time was running out and I must be away, to Southwark and the house of Brian Tempany where horses awaited.

From roof to roof I went, then to the window. It was slightly open!

Pulling it wider, I stepped in.

There was a sudden gasp.

I pulled the window shut, turning as I did so. Somewhere beyond the clouds there was a moon, and a vague light entered the room.

A girl was sitting up in bed, clutching the bedclothes to her. I made out what seemed to be a young and pretty face, tousled hair, and wide eyes.

"Please! Don't be frightened. I am just passing through."

"You are from Newgate," she said.

"I won't be long," I said cheerfully, "if I do not keep moving, or if you should scream to warn them."

"I shall not scream if you do me no harm," she replied coolly. "My father died in Newgate, for debt, and I have no love for them.

"Go down the stairs." She pointed. "The door opens on another street. Cross it and go down the side street. I wish you luck."

"Thank you," I said, and did as she suggested, closing the door softly behind me. Once in the street, all was dark and still. I ran, swiftly and on light feet.

Soon I crossed a square, then another. St. Paul's loomed. I slowed to a walk and crossed the street, moving toward the bridge to Southwark.

Tempany's house was dark and silent. For a time I waited in the shadows, studying it. There seemed to be nobody about, yet it might be a trap. It was unlikely that anyone would suspect that I would come here, yet on the other hand, they were none too sure of Tempany's loyalty, either, because of his association with me.

Must it be always dark and raining when I came to this house? I entered the paved court and suddenly saw a thin thread of light from a window. Someone was here. Should I go directly to the stables? Or should I rap on the door? Yet who would be here? Tempany was gone; so was Abigail.

At the door I tapped lightly, and almost at once there was a response from within the house. The door opened and a tall figure loomed. It was Lila, Tempany's housekeeper and sometimes maid to Abigail.

"Ah? It is you is it?" she demanded accusingly. "If you have come for horses they are there, in the stable."

Lila was a big woman, strong as an ox and just as formidable. But she was expecting me. She led the way to the kitchen and waved me to a table. She had a pot on, and she filled a tankard with ale. Then she put food on the table, working swiftly and smoothly. I fell to, hungry as a maunder's child, and the food was good. Nay, it was excellent.

She went into another room, and when she returned she had a black cloak, voluminous and warm, a hat, and a sword, as well as a brace of pistols and a bag of silver. "You'll be needing these. Peter Tallis let me know."

Overwhelmed, I could only thank her.

"Bother!" she said sharply. Then she turned on me. "How's my young lady? Have you seen her at all?"

"She's at sea, bound for America," I said, "where I hope to follow."

"You'll take me with you?" she asked, suddenly.

I could only gulp, then swallow. "What ... what did you say?"

"You must take me to America," she said. "I will not be left here with herself off across the world needing nobody knows what, and she alone with all sorts of man-creatures and no woman by. She wouldn't let me go, but you will. Take me, Barnabas Sackett."

"Take you?" I repeated the words stupidly, appalled at the thought of traveling so far across the country with this large woman, not fat mind you, but broad in the shoulder and beam, and strong. "What of the house? Did not Captain Tempany leave you in charge?"

"That he did, and a lonely life it is, so I sent for my brother, and he has come along. He will stay whilst I am gone."

"A brother?" Somehow I had never grasped the idea that there might be another such. One I could accept, but two?

"Aye." He came in from the hall then, a man as big as two of me and with hands like hams. "I'll guard well the house, Sackett, as well as if it were my own, and you be takin' the lass here. She'll be happier in America with her mistress, for she's done nothing but worry since they left."

"You don't understand," I said patiently. "We go where there are savages. To a wild land. I do not know how I am even to get there myself, let alone take a woman with me."

"Wherever a man can go, I can go," Lila said calmly. "And whatever the hardships, I'll put up with them. My folk were fisherfolk and well I know the way of boats and sails. I can do as much as any man ... as any two men."

"As for the savages," her brother said, "if they molest my sister, God have mercy on them, for she will not!"

No protest I could utter stirred her resolution one whit. She would go with me, and not only that but she had already packed and had our horses saddled.

Still arguing, I got to my feet, belted on the sword, and took what she had handed me. I donned the cloak.

"It may be months before I see Abigail. We must somehow cross the sea," I said, "and sail along a dangerous, unknown coast. And if we find her we shall be very lucky indeed."

"We will find her, worry none of that," Lila said.

"There will be storms and danger. There will be bloody fighting. And the law is upon my path, Lila."

"I shall be no burden," she replied calmly. "And I can cook better than the sort of victuals you'll be after having."

"Come then, Lila, and if you cannot ride all night, do you stay behind."

"I'll ride the nights and days through," she said firmly.

And so she did.

Chapter 8

North and westward we fled through the wind and the rain, driving along lonely lanes, plunging through the darkened streets of villages, our black cloaks billowing out behind like wings of great bats, the hooves of our horses striking fire from the cobbles.

Out of the night and into a village, then on again. At dawn we rested our horses in a grove beside the way, and sitting under a tree, ate a bit of the food Lila had put up, and it was good food, tasty and lasting. Meanwhile the horses grazed.

"Be they hunting you then?" she asked, looking at me from under her thick brows, "like Peter Tallis said?"

"They think the coins I sold were part of King John's treasure, lost in the Wash. It did no good to tell them nay."

"We go to Bristol?"

"I did think of it. But now ... no. I am for Ireland now, to one of the fishing towns."

She was silent for several minutes, and then said, "Do you know Anglesey?"

"I do know of it."

"I am from there."

I was astonished, for I had no idea her home was anywhere but London, and said as much.

"My father was a friend to Captain Tempany, and worked for him. Before my father died he found me a place with him. You wish to go to Anglesey?"

"I do, and to Ireland from there, and from Ireland to America."

"It is an old old way," Lila said, "but traveled often of an olden time."

A mist lay upon the grass and wove itself in cobwebby tendrils among the dark trees. The dawn was touching the mist with pink, but very lightly yet, as the hour was very early.

"I spoke hastily when I said I knew Anglesey," I explained, "I have not been there, but my father was, and he told me much of it ... an island of bards and witches, where the Druids were a time long since."

She gave me a straight and level glance from under her dark brows. "And live yet, if you know to find them."

"Druids?"

"Aye ... and the bards, too."

She was a strange woman, this Lila. Looking at her brooding face, I was minded to think of the story of Boudicia, of huge frame, the fiery Celtic princess who with flaming red hair and spear led the Iceni against the Romans, the Iceni, some of whom it was said had been among my ancestors. But who could tell? That was long ago.

We rested there, while the dawn painted the clouds with a deft brush. The warmth felt good to my muscles, and at last I got to my feet. "It is time, Lila. We have far to go."

She mounted with ease, and we rode on, again keeping to the lanes and byways, avoiding the traveled roads.

We walked our horses now and again not wishing to attract attention by seeming pursued. We walked, trotted a bit when the way was easy, now upon the open moor, then under the shade of old beeches.

At dusk of the second day we came up to Cricklade, following the old Roman road, at times a mere path, often a lane, yet running straight as the eye can see. We walked our horses beyond the town to Ashton Keynes where the Thames winds about, a small stream there, of no size at all.

There was an inn, and it looked neat and clean. "We'll try to sleep inside this night," I said. "I shall have a room for you if there be one, and I'll make do below stairs in the common room."

A room there was. To preclude curiosity, I said, "The girl is tired, strong though she is, and I'd not have her worn out for meeting the man she is to marry." Lila looked at me, but said nothing. "I am her cousin," I explained, "and she's betrothed to a lad in Shropshire. A sturdy one, too!"

"Aye." The innkeeper looked at Lila and shook his head approvingly. "That he'd better be."

There was some idle talk, and the innkeeper's wife showed Lila to a room under the eaves, small but tidy, and I rolled up in my cloak by the fire when the guests had gone and it was bedding time. It was a small place, and there was but one other there, a short, stocky man with a pleasant smile and a careful eye. He worried me some, for he asked no questions nor made comment, but listened to all spoken as he smoked by the fire.

When I was rolled in my cloak he said, "You've good horses there."

"Aye," I said, not wishing to talk.

"They've come far," he said.

"Aye," I repeated.

"And they'll be goin' farther no doubt. 'Tis in my mind that you should have fresh horses, sturdy ones, too."

Now I was alert, for this was leading somewhere if only to a horse trade. The man was no fool, and such worried me.

"Mine are strong," I said. "They are good for the distance."

"No doubt," he said, "but what if they're in for a run now? How long could they last?"

"As long as need be," I said, "and so they must. I've no silver for others.

They'll go the way," I said, "and to the green pasture when the run is over, to rest awhile."

"Aye, but you'll still be needin' others, or I miss my thought." He leaned over and knocked out his pipe at the hearth's edge. And then, low-voiced, he said, "You give your friends a de'il of trouble, man."

"What do you mean?"

"Would the name of Feghany sound true? Or that of a man named Peter?"

"There is a Peter in the Bible," I said.

"This is a different Peter," he said dryly. "You're in sore trouble, lad, for they be askin' questions in Oxford an' Winchester an' Bristol, too."

"You were speaking of horses?"

"Aye."

"Take them up the road to Cirencester ... the old Roman road. Hold them there and we'll be along."

He reached inside his shirt and handed me a sheet of paper. "Read it," he said, "and then put it in the fire, yonder."

I read. Then I looked straight in his eyes.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"We almost didn't," he said grimly. "We were looking for a lone man riding, and we'd men out at villages along every way northwest. Ah," he said, shaking his head, "that Peter! He should have been a general! He thinks of everything."

"But here? In this place?"

"I was in Cricklade when you passed through, watering my horses at the river, so I followed, saw you giving a look to the inn, so I came here before you."

"My thanks." I looked at him. "You've a name?"

"Call me Darby. They all do."

We slept then, and when in the cold light of another day my eyes opened, he was gone. The innkeeper was stirring the fire.

"Your cousin is awake," he said. "What a woman she is! Why, she'd make two of me!"

"And stronger than any three," I said. "I do not envy the lad. He'd better be one who keeps his eyes from the others or she'll have him over her knee."

He laughed. "Little thought he'll have for others with her to take care of," he said. "I'll put somethin' on for you."

An hour later, in a patch of woods and under the old beeches near the Thames, we traded horses with Darby. There were saddlebags on my horses, and a brace of pistols in case I had none.

"There be this, too," Darby said, and from a roll of skins he took my own sword, the blade of my father, than which none were finer. "How he got it from the gaol I shall never know!"

"Nor I," I said, "but I feel a new man now."

I put out my hand. "Someday, Darby, in America mayhap?"

"Na, I be a busy one here." He shook his head. "It has a sound to it, though.

America! I like it. Savages they tell me, and forests and land wherever you look."

"And running streams, Darby. Keep it in mind, if the worst comes. If you've a thought of finding me, follow a river to the far mountains and ask for me there."

"Barnabas Sackett, is it?"

"Aye, and by the time you get there the name will echo in the hills, Darby. The Indians will know of it, if the white men do not. It is a fair land, Darby, but a raw, rough land that will use up men until it breeds the kind it needs. Well, I will be used, and I hope to have a hand in the breeding, too."

Westward we went, riding easy on strong, fresh horses, through Cirencester to Gloucester over Birdlip Hill, and when I dipped into the saddlebags there was a purse of gold there, a dozen coins, and some silver.

"May I have the other sword?" Lila asked.

"A sword?" I was astonished. "It is a man's weapon."

She looked at me coldly. "I can use it as well as any man. I've five tall brothers, Sackett, and we fenced with swords upon many an hour. Give it to me, and if trouble comes, stand aside and watch what a woman can do!"

"Welcome!" I said cheerfully. "I did not doubt that you could do it, but only that you wished to."

"I do not wish. I do what becomes the moment. If it be a cookpot, I cook. If it be a needle, I'll sew, but if it be a blade that is needed, I shall cut a swath.

To mow arms and legs and heads, I think, is no harder than the cutting of thatch."

In the Cotswolds and the valley of the Severan there were Roman ruins all about, nor was I a complete stranger to them for I'd been led their way by Leland's manuscript, and remembered much of what I'd read.

We camped one night in the ruins of a Roman villa, and drew water from a mossy fountain where Roman patricians must once have drunk. Where we lay our heads that night, Roman heads had lain, though in better fare than we. But now they were gone, and who knew their names, or cared? And who should know ours, ours who had but the green grass for carpet, and the ruined walls of a once noble house for shelter?

Lila was a quiet woman. She spoke little and complained none at all, yet she was woman-too much woman to go off to America with no man of her own. I said as much, and she looked at me and said, "A man will come. Where I am, he will come."

"You'll see few white men in America, or any other but Indians. Good folk some of them, but they do not think like we do."

"I shall not marry an Indian. I shall marry an Englishman or perhaps a Welshman."

Then we forded a stream and rode up a narrow pass between rocks, and when night came we were in a wild and mysterious land, a place of long shadows and great rocky battlements and rushing cold streams and rich green grass around hard black rocks that shone like ice in the dim light of the after-sunset. It was a primeval landscape. Suddenly, they came upon us, a dozen or more of them. Wild, uncouth creatures, some clad in skins, some in rags, wild, mad things wielding all manner of weapons.

They came up from the rocks where they had lain in wait. Screaming wildly, they came down upon us. Lila drew her sword and wheeled her horse to meet them. I tried to yell that flight was our best chance, but she was beyond hearing. She did not scream, but yelled some wild Welsh shout, and light caught the flashing blade of her sword as she swept on toward them.

I barely had time to draw and fire a pistol, and then she was among them.

But what had happened? After her wild Welsh yell they had suddenly frozen, mouths wide to scream, staring at her. Then as one man, or woman, for their were women among them, they fled.

Her sword reached one, I think, before they were gone into the rocks from which they came. Then Lila wheeled her horse, towering in her stirrups, and shouted after them, a hoarse, challenging cry.

Her sword was bloody and she leaned from her saddle and thrust it into a hummock of earth and moss, once ... twice. Then she sheathed it.

Awed, I led us away up the trail to where it went through a pass in the mountains, and she followed quietly.

Later, when the road widened, we rode side by side. "What did you say that frightened them when you called out?" I asked.

"It does not matter."

"It was a curious thing. They stopped as if struck, then they fled as if all the terrors were upon them."

"Indeed, they would have been. They well knew when to fly. That lot! I have heard stories of them! Poor, misbegotten, inbred creatures that live in caves and murder innocent travelers. The soldiers have come for them a dozen times, but they disappear. Nobody finds them ... at least no Englishman."

She was silent then, and I as well. More than two hours had passed since we had seen even the slightest sign of life, and nothing at all but the wild mountains and the rushing cold streams and the rocks that lay like chunks of iron on every hand.

"There's a cottage yon," she said, pointing ahead.

"You have been this way before?"

"No."

"You are from Anglesey, Lila, and you spoke of Druids."

"Did I now?"

"It is said there are people on Anglesey who have the gift."

She rode on, offering no reply. We were ascending a pass through wild, heavily forested hills. Suddenly it came to me.

"This is the pass from Bettws-y-Coed!"

She turned her head. "You know it? You have not been to Wales before?"

"I have not. Is this the pass?"

"It is." Now it was her turn to be curious. "How did you know?"

I was not exactly sure, only somehow it had come upon me. "I was told of it once ... long ago."

"And so you know it in the dark?" For night had fallen.

"I was told of how it looked in the dark, and how it ... felt."

She looked at me again, but now we were approaching a high place in the pass, and down the far slope we saw something white against the blackness, and then a dog barked.

"The cottage," she said. "We will stop there, I think."

"As you will. It is better than the damp hills and the rocks."

"They are Welsh hills," she said sternly, "and Welsh rocks."

Our horses had been growing more and more weary as we moved on, and now as they saw the faint glow of light from a window, they moved forward eagerly. At the door I dismounted while a huge dog barked viciously, his hair on end, teeth bared.

Lila spoke sharply to him in Welsh and he cringed and moved back, but snarled still. We heard the sound of a bar being removed, then a voice spoke from a crack. "Go away! The place is closed!"

Lila spoke sharply and the door crack widened and a girl thrust her head out.

"Who is it that speaks thus?" she demanded, in English, then added a word in Welsh.

"We have traveled far, and have far yet to go," I said quietly. "It is myself and a woman."

"Are you wed, then?"

"We are not," I said. "She is a friend to my betrothed."

"Hah!" The door opened wider. "Then the more of a fool is your betrothed to let you out upon the Welsh hills with another woman. De'il would I be so generous!"

Lila had stepped down from the horse and she towered above the girl in the door.

"We would eat and sleep here," she said, "and have our horses fed."

It was spacious enough inside, a wide room with a low ceiling and a stone-flagged floor, washed clean enough to eat from, which was not all that common.

There was good furniture about and a fire on the hearth, and beside the hearth an old man smoking a pipe. A churn stood in a comer near a sideboard with several rows of dishes.

The girl, seen in the light inside, was dark and pretty, with quick black eyes and lovely lips. "Come," she said, "sit and be rested. My brother will see to your horses."

She looked again at Lila. "You look Welsh," she said.

"I am from Angelsey," Lila replied.

They eyed each other, taking a measure, respectful but wary.

"He speaks of me as a friend," Lila said. "I am in service to the one who will be his bride. She is on her way to America. We go to her now."

The girl looked at me, hands on hips. Then she said, "We've eaten, but there's a bit of bread and cheese and I'll scrape about and see what else."

The old man looked at me thoughtfully. "You are also Welsh?"

"English," I said.

"Ah? I would have said you were Welsh."

Lila turned and looked directly at me. "Who was your mother?"

"I know little of her, only that she was gentle, very beautiful, and that my father rescued her from some pirates in the western isles, and that she had told him she was not frightened because she knew he was coming for her."

"She knew?" Lila looked at the old man, and the girl, who had come back into the room, had stopped also, listening.

"Aye." I loved that part of the story. "Father said she was very calm, and she told one of the men who started to lay hands upon her that he would die before the hour was gone, and he stopped, and they all stopped, frightened.

"One of the others then asked her, sneering, 'And I?' He was a young man, and very bold in his youth and his strength. 'You will live long in evil, but my son shall kill you one day.'

" 'Your son? Where is he? I shall kill him now and be sure what you say is a lie.'

" 'I have no son. Nor have I husband yet, but he is coming now. It is his sword,' she looked at the first man, 'which will draw your blood.'

" 'What are you?' that first man asked. 'A witch?'

" 'I am of the blood of Nial,' she said.

" 'If you be afraid," the younger man said to the other, 'I will take her. She's a handsome wench, and witch or no witch, I'll have her.'

"And then my father was there, and my father's men. He came into the room sword in hand. The first man died, and the younger escaped with a sword cut, and my mother called after him, 'Do not forget your destiny. You will die by the sword in the flames of a burning town!' "

"It is a fine story," the old man said, "a grand story! And you, the son, have killed this man?"

"I am the son, but I have killed no man in the flames of a burning town, nor am I likely to. Soon I shall go where there are no towns, but only forests and meadows and mountains. I fear the prophecy will not be complete."

"Be not sure," Lila said. Then to the old man and the girl. "Did you hear what he said? That his mother was of the blood of Nial?"

"I heard," the girl said. "I believe it."

"It was in his face when he came into the room," the old man said, "I know the look of those who have the gift." He looked at Lila. "You have it."

"What is this gift of which you speak?"

"It is the gift of second sight, the gift of looking beyond or back. Nial was a spaeman, one of those who foretell events. The story is ancient, and from Iceland, and the mother of Nial was the daughter of Ar the Silent, master of a great land in Norway. But Nial was a gifted man, a great talker, and a pleader for his people."

I was tired, and it was late.

"We must to bed," I said, "for in the morning we cross the Menai."

The old man tapped out his pipe. "Put them in the loft," he said. "They'll sleep warm there."

"I shall stay by the fire," I said, "for to sleep too sound would not please me."

The old man turned his head to look. "You are followed, then?"

"It may be. If so, we would not wish to have it known that we were seen. We are good folk," I added.

"Sleep," he said, "and rest. We will let no harm come to the blood of Nial."

I added sticks to the fire when he had gone to his bed, and rolled in my cloak upon the floor near the hearth. It would be a cold night, but the cottage was snug and warm.

I took two pistols under the cloak's edge near me, and my naked blade. Its scabbard lay to one side. I hoped the night would be quiet, but I was not a trusting man, and the hilt of a sword has a good feel.

Oft times a blade across the room beyond the reach of a hand means that death is nearer. I closed my eyes, and heard the rain fall upon the thatch, and against the walls. Drops fell down the chimney and the fire sputtered and spat.

The wind curled around the eaves, moaning with its loneliness, and listening to wind and rain half slept.

Where, O where was Abigail? How far out upon the sea? Did she sleep well this night? Did the ship roll? Was all well aboard?

Outside a stone rattled, and in the darkness my hand tightened upon the sword's hilt.

Chapter 9

We came over the hills to Bangor in the morning, with shadows in the valley and sunlight on the sea. The mist was lifting from the trees, clinging wistfully as if reluctant to leave-like the smoke of ancient Druid fires which once burned in this place.

We came over the hills, and I knew it well from my mother's tales of Taliesin, the great Welsh bard. The village lay upon the hills where once the Druid's upper circle had been, overlooking the Menai Strait that separated Wales from Anglesey, once called Mona, and before that other names as well.

Bangor had been a place of ritual for the Druids, but that was long ago.

Something stirred in me when I saw the view from there. Was it some ancient racial memory? Something buried deep in my flesh and bones?

Lila rode behind me into the village. My eyes were alert for trouble. From here our destination was clear: from the north coast a boat to Ireland; then to lose ourselves in that war-torn island where marched the armies of Lord Mountjoy.

Eyes turned upon us when we dismounted, for we were strangers, and Lila as tall as any man here, and as broad in the shoulders. She looked the Viking woman whose ancestors had once raided these shores, then settled here and across the water as well. They had founded Dublin. What was it the name first meant? Dark Pool, if I recalled correctly.

Recalled? How could I recall? But so I did ... no doubt something heard, something read, something dimly remembered from another time.

Yet I seemed to have passed this way before. Too many strange memories came to me now, too many whose origin I could not recall.

There was a roadside inn where fishermen and sailors stopped, or travelers like ourselves. And we went there now and sat at a table and were brought without asking-fish, bread, and ale.

The people were Welsh. Yet there might be spies among them, although I hoped my pursuers were far from us, seeking in Bristol, Falmouth, or Cornwall.

Traveling with a woman may have helped to fool them, for that they had no reason to suspect-nor that I would go into Wales. Yet I was ever a cautious man.

A distinguished-appearing man sat near us, with a thoughtful but stern face.

That he was a man of the Church was obvious.

"You travel far?"

Smiling, I said, "It is my hope."

"It is not many who come here," he continued. "I come for my health. It is the air of the sea, the smell of the ocean."

"It is a place for poets," I said, "or warriors."

"Are they not often the same?" He looked from Lila to me. "Your accent is strange," he said, "yet your companion, I'd say, is of Anglesey."

"You'd be right," I said. "She lived here once." About myself I said nothing. He was curious, yet I liked the man. He was someone I should have liked to spend a few hours with, talking over the ale, and watching the ships, feeling the wind in my hair.

"I am Edmund Price, of Merionethshire," he said.

"You are a poet," I said, "spoken of in London and Cambridge."

"So far off? I had not realized my poor talents were known."

"The tongue of Wales is music, and you write it well."

"Thank you. That was well said. You are a poet also?"

I shrugged. "I am nothing. A man of the sword, perhaps. A man yet to shape his way." I looked at him with respect. "You, they say, are a man of vast learning, familiar with many languages."

He shrugged. "The more one learns the more he understands his ignorance. I am simply an ignorant man, trying to lessen his ignorance."

"I spoke of travel," I said, "and not lightly. I go to Raleigh's land."

"Ah, yes ... Raleigh. Well, he has acquired a name these last few years, has he not? Men speak of these new lands. I wonder if they are new."

"Who knows? Where man is able to go, man has been. The Irish, they say, sailed over the sea long since, and the Welsh, under Madoc."

"The Irish at least," he replied. "Do you know the tale of Gudlief Gudlaugson, who sailed from the west of Ireland in 1029 with a northeast wind, and was driven far to the southwest, and finally found shelter upon a lonely coast and found there Bjorn Ashbraudson, who had left Ireland thirty years before? It is a known story among us, and many another like it.

"There were Danes settled in Ireland who heard the old Irish stories, and for many a year the land now called America was called Greater Ireland, and the stories were the Irish had been to far western lands even as they had to Iceland."

"I know nothing of these stories. I only know what I have said, that where men can go, they will go, and what is so hard about crossing a sea? It is sailing along shore that is dangerous, and men had sailed from Egypt to Crete and even to the western ocean shores of Spain in the time of Solomon, which is a farther distance than from Iceland to America."

We talked of many things, and it was a pleasure. But the time drew on, and Lila nudged my foot under the table.

"Now we shall go," I said.

"Go," Edmund Price said, "and may the Good Lord go with you."

"Thank you," I said.

I turned toward the door, where Lila already was, and reached for my purse.

Edmund Price lifted a hand to stop me. "Please! Allow me, Barnabas Sackett."

And I was in the saddle and riding out of town before I realized that he had called me by my name!

Anglesey was a lower land, a flatter and sunlit land. And we rode swiftly up the coast toward the point from which we must take to the water, and there were behind us no apparent pursuers.

Where now was Abigail? Where was our ship? How far at sea? Whose hand was at the helm? Who lined up the fo'm'st on a distant star?

We rode across the moors, past quiet farms and between stone walls that guarded fields to right and left. We rode at last to Trearddur Bay, and to a small house there of sticks and plaster, a cozy and warm cot, under low trees with vines all about and some flowers, and it had a view over the bay, and of the mountain that towered to the north.

At the door we drew up. Lila called out, and the low door was opened by a tall man, a very tall man, for when he straightened up from the door he was taller than Lila, a man with a red beard and shoulders rolling with muscle under a flimsy shirt.

"Ha!" He looked at Lila. "You've come home, have you? And who is the man?"

"His future belongs to my mistress. We seek a boat, Owain."

"A boat? To where would you sail, sister?"

"To Ireland to find a ship for America."

"America, is it? You'd go there?"

"It is my destiny."

"Well, look for cousins there. We had those who sailed with Madoc, long, long ago. And others who went looking for them later. And once I talked to a Dane who had gone there in an Irish ship. He was an old man, very old, yet he spoke of wonderful things, palm trees like those in Africa, and great stone buildings, and people who wear feathers. You go to a wild land, but it is at a good time you come, for a ship lately here lies now off Ireland, if you can catch her. She is small, but seaworthy. Her captain is from Iceland. But how to get there? I do not know how it will be done."

"Is it far?"

He shrugged a heavy shoulder. "If you wish to know, you must ask the wind." He looked closely at me. "Is it because of the girl that you hurry? Or are there those behind you?"

I smiled at him. "A little of both. The girl, of course, for I love her very much, and would be with her. As for those behind me, if I am caught it goes hard with me and I do not think I will let them take me. The sea is too close, and my sword too sharp. There would be a fight, I think."

He chuckled, deep in his heavy chest. "There speaks a man. Go within." He gestured. "Your mam will see you, Lila. Feed him. He will need his strength where he goes now, and if he sails with the Icelander, he will need it well. Go.

I shall find a boat, and if there be strangers coming, I'll give a call in time.

"Eat ... rest ... talk to Mam and let her listen to your voice so in the years to come she will have it to remember."

We ducked our heads under the low door, but not so much as he had ducked when he came out.

Inside it was cool and still. There were pots and kettles about, and a good smell of cooking, and a woman there, tall and thin with gray hair and a face unlined by the years, her eyes as old as the stones outside, but not cold.

"Is it you, Lila? It has been long, girl."

"I am passing."

"I heard you speak. So you come and go. Well, it is a far land to which you go, and so has it always been with us. So many have gone, so few have come back. It is the sea that takes them, or the farther shores. I do not know."

She moved easily, putting food on the table. "There's a slab of mutton from the moors beside the sea. The sheep eat salt grass and theirs is the best flesh of all. Eat, boy, and do not stand on time. The food will stay with you and the memory of it where you go. My mam said always to take a cargo of memories, whatever else, for when all is lost the memories remain."

She looked at Lila. "Your mistress is a good woman, girl?"

"She is that. And this one a good man, although I doubted him at first. I did not think any man good enough. Nor do I fear to sail with him. Only the Icelander must be wary or this one will own the boat."

"You have the gift, girl. What do you see?"

She looked up. "I will not speak of that, Mam."

"Come! Is it so bad, then?"

"No." She hesitated, smoothing her strong white hands on her skirt. "Only dark times lie before and about us, dark, dark times. I will marry there, Mam, and die there, too, with a son to leave behind."

"And this one?"

"Four sons, Mam, that live. Some others will die, and she will die in England, and he ... alone ... he will die alone with a weapon in his hand, and there will be fire around and howling madness with the flames. It is not a good thing of which to talk."

Somberly I looked at her. "And will I die old or young, Lila?"

"Old," she said, "Old. Your sons will be men, one of them lost afar off whom you will not see again, far, far off in a strange place. But he will live to leave his blood behind, as will the others."

"But Abigail will come again to England? She will leave me, then?"

"Not like that. I see love always. But she will leave. I do not know why, nor when ... and she will not come back. I see blood upon the shore, and some people already in America are gone ... gone ..."

I ate in silence then, brooding upon what she had said. I believed only a little, but they believed, and that worried me.

Yet, what was there in what she said to worry about? I should live to an old age, I should have four sons to leave behind, and I should have sewn my seed in a new land, under new trees.

"Old," I said. "Well, we must all grow old, and die when the hour comes. But what of the Queen? Will she relent? Will she learn I have no treasure?"

"She will not relent, nor will he who comes after. You will be sought always, for this is fixed in their minds: that you have found the royal crown, and you have kept it for yourself. When it is found that you are in America, some will come seeking you, and you will hide ... you will go far."

"To the blue mountains then?"

"To the very mountains. You will lose yourself in them, and they will give you food, shelter, all that you need. You will live in their bosom."

"Ah, well. It is what I want, after all."

For I was contented then. The mountains would be mine. I would go to them, wander among them, know them. Was not that my destiny, after all?

Footsteps, an opening door, and then the huge frame of Owain was standing there.

"Men come. Four men upon horses."

"Are they strangers?"

"Aye. Would I come if they were not?" He looked at me. "The boat makes ready.

You will go then?"

"I shall, and take your sister there. First, I must stand in the road and see what manner of men they be."

"I would stand with you. I'll get my axe."

My hand lifted. "See your sister to the boat. Did you not say there were only four?"

Sword in hand, and two pistols belted on, I walked out upon the road of gray pounded shells, and I stood there, dark against the road, watching them come.

The mountain was behind me, dark against the sky, a piece of the sea was on my right. Under my black cloak was my sword. My hand on the hilt, the sword half-drawn.

I waited for them there, and hoped they would be strong.

Chapter 10

A rough-looking man now stood in front of the cottage. He looked both at me and the men coming toward me. He called out something over his shoulder. Two other men came from the house.

Across the road near the shore, a man was mending a net. As Owain passed, going to the boat, he spoke. Then the man left his net, holding a long pole.

The riders were coming nearer. Several other people appeared and stood, watching.

The riders drew up, facing me, some thirty feet off. One of them was Robert Malmayne!

"So? We meet again!"

"There is a sadness on me," I said, cheerfully, "for we meet only to part."

"Not this time, I think. You are my prisoner, Sackett."

"You say that to me when you have only three men behind you? And what men they are! I think they have no stomach for steel, or you, either."

My sword slid easily from the scabbard, the point lifting-there was a whispering of sandalled feet upon the shell road, a whispering around me. "Go!" A voice spoke in my ear. "The wind does not wait!"

"And leave these gentlemen?" I said.

There must have been fifty people around us now, both men and women, with a few children. They were saying nothing, but crowding closer and closer. Some had spears, others had poles or sticks. Some had nothing. One at least held a scythe and there were several with wood-axes.

"Back up there!" Malmayne shouted. He waved at them.

"You are in Wales, Malmayne. They do not speak English."

"Tell them to get back."

"I don't speak Welsh, and what are they doing? You are strangers, and they are merely curious."

"By heaven, I'll teach them who is strange!"

He started for his sword but found a large hand already on the hilt. He looked down into a smiling, bearded face. Malmayne cursed, but the hand on the sword hilt would not be moved.

"Careful, Malmayne!" I warned, smiling. "These are good folk, but somewhat rough when stirred."

Now they were crowded tightly around all four horsemen, so close the horses could not move. One fellow had a hold on a rider's leg. He was smiling, just holding the leg, but the implication was clear-one heave and the rider would be sprawling in the road.

"Come!" Owain shouted. "The wind is for the sail! Come quickly!"

Backing away, I sheathed my sword, then ran lightly to the shore. Lila was with me. I caught the gunwhale of the boat and we leaped aboard. We shoved off. The wind took the sail and it bellied out.

"I shall see you die by fire!" Malmayne shouted. "I shall have a warship after you!"

With Holyhead behind us, we held a course to the southwest for Wicklow Point, far and away across the Irish Sea.

"What will they do?" I asked, gesturing behind us.

"They? Nothing. After a bit they will drift back to their work and your Malmayne can do as he feels, which will not be much on Anglesey. He'll get no boat there, nor for miles away, and by that time we shall be along the Irish coast, which none knows better than I."

We had a strong wind, a following wind, and the sea went well before us. After a bit I went below and lay down on some mats and sails and slept. When I awoke, our vessel was south of Wicklow Head and off the Horse Shoe Bank which we kept inland of us.

"When you sleep, you sleep!" Owain declared. He pointed ahead and to starboard.

" 'Tis an easy coast here, if one be watchful. Yon lies a rock ... Wolf Rock, 'tis called, and she bares her teeth when the wind blows. There are banks along the coast, no place for a ship to be caught, so a man must hold well out upon the sea. Most of the dangers lie four to six miles out, along here."

We stood together, watching the sea ahead. "Landsmen!" he said. "Such fools, they are! Why, a month ago in Dublin town I heard one talk in a tavern, a wise man, they said he was, and he was saying how ancient seafaring men were afeard to venture to sea, that they always held close along the coast for safety. I laughed at him, and he became angered."

"Did you tell him?"

"I did, but what good to tell fools? I told him the dangers of the deep ocean were one in ten to the risks along an unknown coast, or even a known one. He looked at me with pity for my ignorance, he who had never set a sail nor held a hand to the tiller. Look you! Ahead of us lie the Arklow Bank, the Glassgorman, Blackwater and Dogger, and any one a death trap-be you not knowing them. Yet the sea looks innocent enough to a landsman."

"The Icelander you spoke of. Where will he be?"

Owain considered that. "He may have moved, yet I think in Castlehaven or Glandore. He does not like busy places, that one."

Green lay the coast and gray the sea, and the wind whipped whitecaps from the wave crests and stung our faces widi blown spray. Our craft lay over on its side and cut the waves handily as if playing with the sea, like a porpoise. We saw only a few fishing boats closer in, and one square-rigged ship, afar off.

From time to time I took the tiller.

It was Glandore Bay to which we came at last, rounding Galley Head and Foilsnashark Head and keeping Adam Island well off our port beam. The Bay was small, but it penetrated well into the land and was thus well-protected from all winds.

There were two castles in view. This was, or had been, a seat of the O'Donovans.

The gray walls of Castle Donovan arose on our port side.

We dropped anchor there, close in, and the ship we looked for was there, the Icelander standing by the rail watching us as we steered into the harbor.

"Hoy, Thorvald!" Owain called. "I have two for your ship!"

"Ve sail for Newfoundland!" Thorvald called back. "Ve sail at first light!"

"It is my sister who goes, and an Englisher. We have followed you from Anglesey!"

A skiff was lowered and Lila climbed down, then I. Owain rowed us over, and we climbed aboard.

"A woman aboard my ship? I would do it only for you, Owain!"

Thorvald was broad and thick, heavy-boned and blond. He looked at me with piercing blue eyes. "You are a sailor, yes?"

"I am."

"Vhere is it you go?"

"To Virginia, but Newfoundland is a step upon the way. We thank you."

"Somevon looks for you?"

"Aye, mayhap a Queen's ship, but if you do not wish to risk it, we will find another way, or buy our own boat and sail it together."

Thorvald chuckled. "You'll find that hard, very hard! And cold, too." He smiled wryly. "If a Queen's ship will follow vhere ve go, she may have you, und velcome."

The hills were green and lovely around the Bay of Glandore, and the crumbling ruin of Castle Donovan looked wild and strange among the thick-standing trees above the bay. We went ashore in the skiff, and at a place to which Owain took us, I bought some provisions.

Curiously, I glanced around the old building. It was a combination warehouse and shop, a place I suspected where a goodly portion of the merchandise had been smuggled. We bought what we needed, including some additional stores for the ship, and then returned to our boat.

It was no great craft, at all, but built somewhat on the lines of a Norwegian bojort with a square topsail above the spritsail, a lateen mizzen and a small spritsail under the bowsprit. It was called the Snarri, and I liked the look and the feel of her. She was steered with a whipstaff, which gave the man at the helm a chance to observe the sails.

There was a small cabin aft and a section was curtained off for Lila.

The sky was gray when we left the emerald-green harbor of Glandore behind and sailed past the islands into open sea. Standing amidships I looked back at Ireland. Would I ever again see the isles of Britain?

The wind blew smartly from the south, yet Thorvald crowded on what sail we had to make good time toward Iceland. A sound of distant thunder with far-off streaks of lightning warned us what trouble lay ahead, but Thorvald had grown up on a ship's deck, and the man on the whipstaff was a burly fellow of forty years or more, who looked the Viking he was.

Shortly before noon I relieved the helmsmen, and Thorvald stood by, keeping a close eye upon me for he was no man to trust his ship to an unknown. But I was a fair hand from the boating down off the fens. After a bit he no longer watched so closely, trusting my hand and judgment.

Most of the time, Lila stayed below. When the weather was mild enough and the ship steady, she cooked with supplies from the stores, always warm, nourishing food.

Thorvald looked at her and shook his head. "You spoil us all, Lila. It is not good for sailor to expect too much!"

He wasted no time, but laid a course for the northwest, pulling steadily away from any area where a search might be directed, steering toward the cold northern waters.

At midnight I awakened and came on deck to stand beside Thorvald. "If you wish to sleep," I said, "you can leave her to me."

"I am tired," he said simply. "The course is northwest-by-north."

He went below, and I was alone with the man on the whip-staff, whose face I could not see under his cowling.

The wind had grown colder with the days, and when at last the mountains of Iceland loomed ahead we gathered amidship to look at land again, and Thorvald took us easily into a small cove where lay his home.

Three days we lay in port, and then once more set sail. Now the wind was steady but cold. And on the night watch it grew suddenly colder. Wary of some change, I awakened Thorvald.

He came on deck, sniffed to smell the wind, waited a bit, and then said, "Ice!"

We changed course toward the south. Suddenly I saw something white and glistening in the water. It was ice. Soon we saw several patches of broken ice and then, looming, a huge berg.

We passed her, several hundred yards off, a vast white tower pointing an icy finger at the clouds.

The days passed swiftly. It was a gray and overcast day when we sighted the birds of Witless Bay, and turned north along the coast, for we'd made our landfall a bit to the south of our port.

We moved into St. John's harbor and dropped our anchor there. Many boats were about, Portuguese, Basque, and Icelandic fishermen, and some others, just as obviously pirates. The pirates loved the rugged bays and small harbors of the island. They liked to recruit seamen there, for the Newfoundlanders were hardy men, skilled in all the work of ships and the sea, welcome aboard any ship, but doubly so aboard pirate craft for whom speed and seamanship were a prime requirement.

"Ve'll go no further here," Thorvald said. "Ve sell vhat ve have brought and ve load fish for home."

"I wish I could tempt you. I've traded for furs along that coast." I indicated where the large land might lie beyond the island. "There's a fortune to be had for the taking."

Thorvald shook his head, although his eyes held on the western horizon.

"Think, man," I suggested, "you could take back as much in one voyage as in four."

He shook his head again. "I vill find a boat for you," he said, "I know all here, und they know me."

It was a bold island to which we had come, and there were bold men about, ships fitting for the sea. And boats came in to dry their fish or to replenish supplies for another spell upon the dark water.

An eagerness was upon me now. I had come far upon my way, and I thought only of Abigail and our ship and my friends. Always the blue mountains hung like a mist at the back of my dreams, and there was no challenge that called to me as they did.

We went ashore and moved among the fishermen, Thorvald, Lila, and I, buying what things we needed, for it was a goodly port of supply.

Suddenly a huge man stood before me. He was bigger than I by breadth and height.

A strong man he looked, and certainly he felt himself so.

"The wench, there," he gestured at Lila. "Fifty English pounds for her!"

"She's a free woman," I said.

"Bah!" he sneered. "What woman is free when money is offered? I want her! A hundred pounds, then!" His eyes bulged a little as he leaned toward me. His face was red with drinking.

"No," I said. "Now stand aside."

"Stand aside!" he shouted. "You say that to me?"

He was a big man and drinking. A dangerous man, I thought, and I was of no mind to fight with him then. I was impatient to be off to the south, hungry for a ship to take me there, and irritated by this great oaf who stood there, breathing his foulness upon me.

He reached for his sword, so I dropped one hand to stay the drawing of it, and with the fist of the other I smashed him in the wind.

It hit him hard and his breath left him with a gasp. But knowing a hurt man is not a whipped man, I spread my legs and swung both fists to his jaw.

Both landed ... and as I have said, I am strong as two men ... or three.

He sat down hard in the mud, blood streaming from his smashed nose and mouth. He was stunned by my blows. So I walked by him and went on. Thorvald stared at me.

"There is power in you," he said. "But do you know who he is?"

"No."

"Nor I ... but he comes from yon ship," he pointed to a Dutch fluyt that lay in the land-locked harbor, "and he is a pirate."

"No matter," I said, but I lied. For suddenly there was a great envy upon me.

The fluyt was a neat, compact, and handsome vessel, every line of her speaking of speed and good handling.

"He comes," Lila said quietly.

Turning, I saw the big man had gained his feet. A half dozen were gathered about him, all looking toward me. He pointed, then took a step toward me but staggered and almost fell again.

A lean-faced man with dark, pleasant eyes stepped up to us. "Yon's a quarrelsome, trouble-making man. We'll be well rid of him when he goes."

"Is that truly his ship?" I asked.

"It is."

"And is he truly a pirate?"

"He is ... and fresh from robbing good fishermen upon the Banks, and making ready to sail for the Antilles when he is finished with his drinking."

"I am Barnabas Sackett," I said, "from England, and this is my good friend Thorvald."

"I know him," the lean man said. "You travel in good company."

Now the pirate's men were approaching.

"I will stand with you," said Thorvald.

"Lila," I said, "when this is over we must move your goods. Now we shall have a ship."

"A ship?"

"Aye."

They were coming up to me now, rough-looking men, at least two of them rascals.

They started to draw their swords, but I lifted a hand.

"If you draw on me, it will be mutiny. When did a good crew mutiny against their captain?"

"Captain!" They stared at me, startled.

"Had you rather sail with that great, drunken booby yonder?" I gestured at him.

"If you like him, keep him. I want no part of him. But if you sail with me there'll be no brawling ashore."

"Why should we sail with you? Do you have a ship?"

"The fluyt," I said, "is now my ship. I say we leave him to his drink and go aboard of her and make ready for the sea. If he is no better a master than he is a fighter, she'll need work."

One of the men, who appeared to be a fisherman, laughed. "He has courage, this one!"

"If I go aboard," I said, "you'll obey me."

They knew not what to think of me, looking from me to Lila and then to Thorvald.

"Come!" I said abruptly. "That one is finished. You can see it for yourself.

He'll lead you to your death, or capture and a Spanish prison."

"And where would you take us?"

"To rich prizes, and an even division all around with no giant share for the master. And then I'll go ashore in Virginia and the fluyt is yours."

Oh, I had properly guessed my men! I was not speaking into the wind, for they were men who appreciated courage and little else. They wanted profit, but it was the game, too, and they had just seen their master put down in the mud by a man a third smaller, and easily at that.

Some of whatever fear they had felt of him had gone with his fall. Now he fell again, and had stumbled up again, whether from drink or the effects of my blow I neither knew nor cared. He was hauling at his sword hilt.

To be a leader of pirates demanded not only courage but gall, the daring to challenge anything, and these were the men for it.

"He will kill you," one of them said. "He comes now."

He was coming, with a naked blade, but I waited, barehanded, measuring his movements. There was ugliness in him, and fury. He would be rash and overly confident, because I stood with no weapon in my hand.

My father had little to leave me in goods of this world, but he had what he had learned of men and weapons, of horses and women and ships and towns. He taught me well, and I knew what I could do.

"He means to kill you," Thorvald warned. "Do not mistake him. He will be quick."

They drew a little aside, knowing this was between us, for this is the way of men. One fights one's battles alone, not asking mercy nor expecting help.

The giant lifted the point of his sword toward my belly, and he was steadier than I had expected. My blows had jolted some of the drunkenness from him, but I knew the memory of it was in his muscles yet.

His was a flat, single-edged blade, the cutting edge down. His grip would be strong upon the sword, his concentration hard upon it. He was thinking now of what he would do to me. He was already tasting his revenge for the blows I had struck him.

Suddenly, he lunged. It was perfect-the move, the lunge. How many times had I done this in practice?

With a quick slap of my palm I knocked the blade over, out of line with my body.

Then I took a quick step in with my left foot, my right leg hooked behind his, and my right hand smashed up, the butt of my palm under his chin.

His head snapped back and my leg tripped him. He half-turned and fell again into the mud, his grip loosening on the sword. As he hit the mud I kicked it from his hand, then took it up. He lay staring ... shocked ... expecting death.

I broke the blade over my knee and threw the pieces to the earth.

"Come, Lila," I said, "we will go to our ship."

Chapter 11

"You are a bold man," Lila said. "I begin to see what she sees in you."

The closer we came to the fluyt the better I liked her-a neat three-master with nice lines. Yet when we went up the ladder to board, I was shocked.

Her decks were dirty and she looked unkempt and down-at-heel, certainly no proper look for a trim Dutch vessel. Several hands were loitering about and one man stood upon the quarter-deck staring down at me and at Lila.

"Who be you?" he demanded.

"Your new master," I told him, mounting the ladder to stand facing him. "Your former master and I had a bit of a difficulty, and those who were ashore decided they'd prefer me as master."

"They did, did they?" He scowled at me. "They said naught to me!"

I smiled at him. "There's the ship's boat alongside. Go ashore and talk to your former master, if you like."

"You'd like that. To have me go ashore and leave you to command!" He stared at me from under bushy brows. " 'Tis an unlikely thing."

He peered at me. "Who says you can handle a ship? Or a crew?"

"Ask them below there," I said, gesturing. "Now go below and get yourself a clean shirt, clean pantaloons and a trim for your beard after a shave. Don't appear on this quarter-deck without them."

He started to argue, his eyes peering at me. "Go," I repeated, "or you'll find yourself among the crew."

"You'll need a new sailing-master then," he said, "unless you can lay a course yourself, for there's no other aboard can do it."

"Show up here looking the way an officer on the poop deck should look, and you'll keep the job," I said harshly. "Otherwise I'll do it myself."

"You can lay a course, can you?"

"Aye," I said, "but I've no wish to displace you."

Grumbling, he went down the ladder, and with Lila following I went into the aftercabin.

Surprisingly, it was not so bad as I'd expected. But it was still not good enough to suit Lila. "Go! Leave this to me! And the cooking, too! Just see there's enough aboard to do with!"

Out on deck again I turned the crew to, late as it was, and set them mopping decks, coiling lines, and making things shipshape. There were enough good Newfoundlanders aboard so that the job was not a great one, but it stirred them about and let them know a new hand was at the wheel.

All the while I was thinking. I'd no wish to be a pirate, only to be ashore in Raleigh's land with Abigail, at the same time I'd grown up in an England of the Armada, of Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher and Hawkins. Sea-fighting was in the English blood, and the Spanish were sailing their great galleons up the coast from the Antilles, loaded with gold, some of them.

With the crew at work I went to the aftercabin and spread out the charts on the great table there. They were old, none so good as those aboard my own ship, yet good enough, and I'd a memory for the charts I'd left behind. Yet I studied them, supplying what else was needed from the memory of those other charts.

Westward and south, along the shores of the Gaspe then south past Nova Scotia and down the coast, holding well out to sea.

I was still at the charts when an hour had passed and the sailing-master returned. He'd done a good bit to himself, and looked fresh and clean ... at least, cleaner.

When he saw me studying the mouth of the great river of Canada, he shook his head. "Do not think on it. A strange ship has newly come there, a ship with many guns that flies no flag I've ever seen. He who commands is a pirate also, but like none I have ever seen. He owns but one hand. Where another was there is now a hook, sometimes a claw or talon. He is a young man, very strong, very quick, and I believe he does not leave. An Indian told me he is building a great house, a castle, perhaps, on a hill in the mountains."

"We will avoid him then." Looking at the men down on the deck, I noticed one, a strongly made fellow with fine shoulders and a well-shaped head. "That one down there. Who is he?"

"A Newfoundlander, and a good man, too. His name is Pike. Or so they call him.

He was a fisherman before he came with us, and a hunter of whales."

"And your name?"

"Handsel. The first name is Peter, but I am called Hans or Hands ... it does not matter which."

"You know this man Pike?"

He nodded. "He works well, and he fights well." Then he added, "I think he is the best seafaring man aboard. He knows the sea and he has a love for the ship."

That night the food upon the table was food Lila had prepared, and it was good.

The men ate, and ate, and pushed back from the table with a sigh. Watching them, I knew my struggle was over, for it is rare that sailors have such food and they would not risk losing her, even if they wished to lose me.

After a few days, I mused, I would have no trouble. Whoever heard of a revolution of fat men?

Long I studied the charts while the crew worked upon the deck, repairing lines and sails and simply dressing her up for sea. As the beauty of the ship became evident, their pride in her grew.

On the third day I was upon the deck and the man I had inquired about passed me.

Within the hearing of several, I stopped him. "Pike?"

He turned squarely to face me.

"Starting today you are sailing-master. You will direct the deck work, and the handling of sails. You will report to me ... and only to me."

"Aye!"

"The ship is our home, Pike. It is also our fortress, our refuge. I wish it treated so. If there comes a time when we must sail through the eye of a needle, I want her ready. Do you understand?"

"I will do that. She will be ready, Captain."

On the fifth day we sailed out of the harbor and set our course for the coast of the great land to the west, but I chose a route that would hold us far at sea and clear of the Gaspe.

Whoever the pirate was who had the claw hand, I had no quarrel with him. Let him go his way, and I mine, and mine was for Raleigh's land.

For three days the wind held true and we made good weather of it, seeing neither land nor ship, nor wishing it. My intent was to reach for the south, closer to home, and perhaps a Spanish ship.

On the sixth day in the morning watch there was a cry, "Sail ho!"

With the glass I'd found aboard I studied her. It was a small fishing vessel, nothing aboard, no doubt, but hardworking fishermen and their catch, and I'd rob no such man.

"The other would have," Handsel said grimly. " 'Twas said he passed nothing!"

"And wasted his time," I replied shortly, "judging by what's below."

Twice during the next few hours we sighted craft. One was another fishing vessel; the second was an Icelandic boat. Having been dealt with so justly at their hands, I had no intention of returning the favor by looting a craft that might belong to some friend of Thorvald's.

Now we moved in closer to the coast. It was a dangerous practice, and this I knew, but I believed that most Spanish craft came north along the great warm stream that flows along the coast of America until nearly opposite Raleigh's land, when they turned eastward for Spain.

We were still far tp the north, but there was ever a chance ...

Pike was at my elbow. "Captain," he spoke for my ears only, "there's a vessel beyond the island there." He indicated the direction with a nod. "Over the trees? Can you see?"

"Aye." I directed my glass that way and saw it plain, only the tips of her masts visible above the trees on the low, sandy island. Those masts should be showing well above the trees, and I had an idea about that.

"Pike, have a look. What do you think of her masts?" He peered through the glass, then turned to me. "She's stepped her topm'sts, Captain. Whoever she is, she's stepped her topm'sts not to be visible. For some reason she's lying up."

"Aground?"

"She's on an even keel. She's making repairs, I'd say, or being looted."

Taking the glass I studied the shore. The island was low and sandy with a few sandhills covered with coarse grass, and the sandy ridge along the backbone of the island was covered with pines.

There was a mild sea running and we eased the whipstaff to guide her in closer along shore. I saw no sign of life anywhere.

Night was coming on and I liked not the look of the shore.

"Captain?" Pike said. "We've a man aboard knows this island."

I lowered my glass, incredulously. "Aye, we call him Blue, for there's an odd color to his skin. He was fishing off the Banks and was blown away for several days ahead of a storm. He once landed here for water ... there's springs on the other side."

"Have him up. I would speak with him."

Still no sign of life or movement. Was she a dead ship, then? Or some trick of the eye and no ship at all? Or were we watched from beneath the pines, yonder?

Blue was a lean, long-armed man with a face scarred by powder or some such thing, giving it a blue cast. "I know her," he said, "and there's a fair anchorage beyond the island, good holding ground if the weather be good. More than one ship has watered there."

It was growing dark, but through the glass which I handed him he could barely make out the masts. "I've a feeling about her," he said, taking the glass from his eye, "and I'd be hard put to say the why of it, but I am certain sure she is Flemish. My eyes are better than most and I seem to see a heart-shaped dead-eye in her rig-and the Flemish do like them so."

Under his guidance, and with careful use of the lead, we worked our way about the end of the island, with no lights showing.

In a small cove Blue knew, we dropped our anchor and lowered a boat. With a dozen men, I led a reconaissance.

Up the low, sandy shore, over the sandhills and along the edge of the trees.

Walking quietly was not an easy thing, for there was much debris-fallen limbs, broken twigs, and leaves. Yet we managed it, and slowly, warily, we made our way through the trees.

Blue caught my arm, pointing.

Not one ship, but two! Closer to the shore was a Flemish galleon, a fine craft of a type they'd been building no more than ten or a dozen years, beautifully ornamented along her gundeck. Obviously her masts had been stepped to avoid any sudden escape, but her way out of the inlet was blocked by the other ship, of which we could make out very little in the darkness.

An awning had been spread and several men were seated under it, drinking. At least, three were drinking and the fourth sat opposite them, his hands tied behind him. Further along the beach another fire had been lighted and we heard shouting and laughter from there, drunken laughter, it seemed.

"A fine place!" One of the men was saying. "A dozen times I've used it, and a dozen good ships looted and their loot taken aboard our own craft at our leisure."

He pointed a finger at the bound man. "Come now! We know there's gold aboard, and the gold we will have, or we'll take your hide off, an inch at a time."

He was a big man, by the look of him, although he was seated on a cask. He had a dark, saturnine look about him, with a taunting, evil face, and his companions looked no better. I glanced toward the beach to see how many men were there ... a dozen? More ... many more.

At least thirty, and there might be fifty. How many were left aboard? And was there anybody on the captured vessel?

Abruptly, I turned and led the way back out of the brush. "Blue, keep an eye on that ship." I pointed to the captured vessel. "Let no one see you, but keep an eye on them. If there's any move, come to me at once."

On the shore we got into the boat, and in a matter of minutes I was sitting in the aftercabin of the fluyt with Pike and Handsel.

"You will stay with the fluyt," I told Handsel. "At the first light, bring her off the mouth of their cove, and have her ready for action. Can you do it with a dozen men?"

"With this craft I can. The Dutch build their ships to be worked by few hands."

"Bring her around at daylight, then, and train your guns on the pirate ship, but do not fire unless fired upon."

Turning to Pike, I said, "You take a dozen men and seize the ship. Go around by boat ... 'tis all in darkness yonder by their ship. Slip aboard and take over.

When you have her, run up a white flag or any bit of white cloth on the fo'm'st."

"And you?"

"We'll go the way we went before, meet Blue, and take the master of the ship and his prisoners. Be wary now, I want to lose no men, but if you move with swiftness and silence you'll have them. Most of the crew is ashore and drunk."

Pike turned to leave. "Pike?" He stopped. "I trust in your judgment. If at any point you think the job cannot be done, return to the fluyt. You'll get no argument from me."

All was dark and still when we next came through the pines. The fires still flickered on the beach, but few men stirred. Most were already in a drunken sleep.

Under the awning the three men sat, still baiting the captured captain. "You have until daybreak. Think it over," the pirate was saying, "or else we'll skin you alive."

Softly I came to the edge of the pines. The wind had swept clear the sand upon that side, and it was but a dozen steps to the side of the awning. A moment I hesitated there, drawing my sword from its scabbard. Blue moved off to my right, drawing his cutlass. Three other men were with us, and we moved in closely.

"Skin you!" the dark man repeated drunkenly. "We'll skin you alive! There's gold. I know there is gold."

"There is no gold," the prisoner replied calmly. He had a fine look of contempt for them. "I am a merchant venturer. We have cloth for trading with the Indians, and we hope to obtain furs. We have some knives, some tools. We are none of us wealthy men."

I had walked quietly forward. "I believe you, my friend, and I shall be content with your cargo. You may keep your vessel and your hide."

"Wha-what?" One of the men came to his feet, the others just stared. But their captain did not move. His back to me, he simply spoke quietly.

"Whoever you are, you had best leave. The ship is mine, the cargo is mine, and this man's skin is mine."

"Yes?" I touched the back of his neck with my sword point, denting the skin.

"Yes," he repeated, and he moved not a hair. "And your skin, too, if you do not put that sword aside. You see," he said calmly, "I know who you are, I know what ship you had, I know what you plan to do ... and you are now my prisoner. Though it is possible," he added, "that we might reach an agreement, Barnabas Sackett.

We just might."

For once I knew not what to say, nor which way to move. A quick glance toward the pirate ship ... no white flag.

A glance back toward the opening of the cove, and my vessel was not there, either.

Blue was with me, but where were the others?

"Taking over a pirate ship," the captain continued, "is never as simple as it seems. You see, your man Handsel used to sail with me. He knew I used this island, knew what ship you had seen, and saw a chance to become master of a vessel serving under me. When you came ashore the first time, he sent a message to me, and since then we have been simply waiting. Surrender. Surrender now, or die."

"You have nerve, my friend, but nerve is not enough when I have a sword. If one wrong move is made, I'll lean on this blade. Will you but feel the needle point?

It is razor sharp. One move, and no matter what happens after, your spinal cord is severed."

He held very still, but he laughed softly. "So what do you do now?" he asked.

"Kill me, and you die next. If you do not kill me, my men will surround you and take you. What will you do now?"

With my left hand I drew a pistol from my waistband. Was Blue with me or against me? I gambled that I had judged him right.

"Blue, keep them covered with your pistol and shoot the first one who twitches.

And cut loose the unfortunate captain."

Chapter 12

Blue did not hesitate, but moved swiftly behind the prisoner and cut him loose.

The man stood, tottered, and almost fell, then braced himself, chafing his wrists to restore circulation. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I am grateful."

"You have a crew?"

"Yes ... a few are left. They are prisoners aboard my ship."

"We must free them." I glanced toward the pirate ship ... and still no white flag fluttered from the masthead, nor had my vessel appeared off the cove.

And what of Lila, still aboard the fluyt? She was a strong, capable young woman, but there were evil men aboard the Dutch ship, and Lila was alone. What would the Newfoundlanders do?

"Take that line, Blue, and let's put some lashings on our friend here."

"You're acting the fool," the pirate said calmly. "I am the only one who can help you now. You live or die as I decide. As for the gentleman you so kindly released, do you suppose he will help you? He wishes only to take his ship and escape. You can expect no help from him, and your own crew have sold you out."

"One of them has," I said, "or so it seems. But I had no ship or crew when first I came upon them, and what I've done once I can do again."

Blue lashed the pirate's wrists snug and tight, and then those of the other two, who sat quietly under the muzzle of my pistol and the threat of my blade.

"My name is Duval," the pirate said. "You have heard of me?"

"I have not," I replied shortly, "but no doubt there's a noose waiting for you somewhere."

"If you've not heard of me," he spoke contemptuously, "you're no seaman."

"I know little of pirates," I said, "except for one called the Claw."

He gave me a sharp look. "Talon, you mean. That is what they call him now. Ah, yes! He was the one. But he has retired now. He swallowed the anchor and built himself a place ashore."

"He still has ships on the sea."

Duval shrugged. "It may be true. How do you know of him?"

I ignored his question, gathering up the weapons that lay about. There were several pistols and cutlasses.

The sky was growing gray in the east. There was no sign of the fluyt and I knew I must do what had to be done without her.

And whatever could be done must be done at once, swiftly. I glanced upward and the thought came to me with the wind.

"We should fly our flag," I said, "and that will be our mast." I indicated a tall, almost bare pine that towered high.

They stared at me, unsure of what I meant. "We will use Duval for our flag," I said. "Get a line over that big bough and we'll hoist him up there."

Duval's face went white. "You can't-"

"Oh, we're not going to string you by the neck," I said. "We'll just hang you up there out of harm's way. Of course," I added, "if you struggle too much you might work yourself loose, and if you do that, you'll fall."

From the ship's stores brought ashore from the captured vessel, Blue took a heaving line. Bending the end of it to a stronger line, he threw the heaving line over the branch on the second try, then pulled the heavier line over.

Rudely he pulled Duval around and, taking a turn around his ankles and another around his bound arms, they laid hold of the line and hoisted him aloft, nearly fifty feet in the air, hanging face down from a limb.

At the last minute Duval twisted, turned, and tried to fight. "Damn you! Turn me loose and I'll give you a thousand in gold! Two thousand! Anything! I'll get your ship back!"

"Hoist away," I said, and we hoisted.

"Looks right pretty up there," I commented. Then I glanced at the others. "Will you lie quiet or shall we hoist you aloft?"

"We ain't makin' no trouble. Just leave us be."

Thrusting two spare pistols in my waistband, I led the way toward the water.

There was in my mind no thought of what might be done, only that somehow I must have the men free who were in that vessel, and somehow I must come by a ship.

Such carrion as Duval interested me not, nor his talk of gold or ships. I would be a trader in a new land, and perhaps at a later day, a farmer. Many a pirate had I known of, and most found their way to a gibbet. I had no such wish to be dancing on air at the end of it all. What was it Black Tom had called it? "The steps and the string." And well he might, for that was it.

Drunken men sprawled upon the sand, and we looked at them from a distance off.

There were not enough of them.

"They be waiting aboard there," I told my companions. "Waiting for us, belike."

"Aye," Blue chuckled, "I wonder if they've sighted our colors yon."

"If they have," I said, "it will give them something to think on."

I turned on the man we had freed. "And your name is what?"

"My name is Hanberry. James Hanberry. English to my father's side, Dutch on my mother's, and I live mostly in the Netherlands. I've a good cargo aboard there," he said, "one I'll fight to keep."

"You lost it," I replied coolly, "and if we get it back, I shall claim a part."

"Then do what you have to do by yourselves! I'll be damned if-"

"Be damned then," I said cheerfully. "You'd be skinned alive by now had it not been for me. You will either help or go your own way."

We walked, and when we had gone some thirty yards, he ran to catch up. "You shall be damned, Sackett! The Good Lord will send you to the lowest hell!"

"Let him, then," I replied. "In the meantime, we have work to do."

Turning to Blue I said, "What think you of Pike?"

"A true man, say I, and I have known him these twenty years, boy and man. If he has not flown the white flag it was because he could not."

The wind was growing colder. Whitecaps showed themselves, cresting each wave.

The tops of the pines bent before the wind, and I did not envy the captain, hanging on high.

The two ships lay off the shore, almost side by side. We climbed into a ship's boat and pushed off. Pistol poised, I watched the rail of the pirated ship and saw no movement.

There was a rope ladder over the side. As we drew up we made fast to the bottom of it and I climbed swiftly and swung over the rail.

A faint creak warned me. A door stood partly open. The ship moved gently upon the water, but the door did not swing.

Blue hit the deck behind me, Captain Hanberry a moment later. "The door," I whispered. "There's somebody back of the door."

Turning sharply as if to the ladder to the afterdeck, I wheeled quickly as I reached it, grasped the latch, and jerked the door open.

A man sprawled upon the deck, then started to rise, "Get up if you're friendly,"

I told him, and shifting the pistol to my left hand, not wishing to waste a shot on so vulnerable a target, I drew my blade.

He got to his feet slowly, a thick-lipped man with blue eyes and a florid face.

"I be one of the crew," he said, "Cap'n Hanberry will speak for me."

"He is that," said Hanberry, "and a good man, too. Where are the others, Rob?"

"Below decks," he said, "workin' theirselves free. I was the first. I come above decks to see how the wind blew. There be two men in the aftercabin, Cap'n, scoffing an' drinkin'. There be another for'rd, I'm thinkin'."

"I'll take the one for'rd," Blue said.

He left me, moving swiftly along the deck, and I stepped into the after passage, which was a short one, with a door to right and left, and the main cabin straight aft. I walked on, opened the door, and stepped in.

There sat a man with his feet on the table, ripped back in a chair. He suddenly slammed his feet to the floor and I shot him as he reached for a pistol.

The ball took him fairly in the chest as he started to rise, and I turned swiftly as a second man heaved a bottle. Dodging the bottle I sprang past the table. He came up, cutlass in hand. Then he looked across his blade at me and suddenly threw his weapon down.

"No," he said, "I'll be damned if I do! I'll not fight for Duval. I'll not risk my neck."

"Then out upon the deck, man, and take that with you." I indicated the body.

"There's more outside."

Flemish galleon she was, the forem'st stepped forward of the forecastle as on most galleons, decks narrower than her sides because of the Danish tax, which charged according to the width of the deck. A good, solid vessel which I liked not so well as the fluyt, but almost as much.

Her topm'sts had been taken down so she'd not show above the trees and could be looted in security. She carried thirty guns, and how she had been taken I could not guess, for the pirate vessel opposite carried only twelve, although obviously a fast sailer.

From behind the mainm'st I looked over at the pirate vessel, scarcely a cable's length off. She looked dark and sullen, low upon the water as if crouched to spring. There was no sign of Pike, nor of any of the others, nor was there movement upon the shore opposite.

I turned upon Hanberry. "How is it to be, Captain? Do you follow my lead in what happens now? Or, when your men are free once more, will you leave us?"

He flushed somewhat. "Do you think me ungrateful? We shall carry on, although my men are not schooled in fighting."

"If they trade in these waters, they'd better be," I replied.

Beyond the pirate ship the pines were a dark huddle against the white of the sand-a thicker patch and deeper than those we'd come through to capture Duval.

Was that where Pike waited? Was the watch kept so well he dare not attempt an attack?

Well, then. If we could attract the attention of those aboard the pirate craft, then he might have his chance.

"Open the ports," I said, "and run out your guns. First, make sure they are charged."

"You'd fight here?" Hanberry's voice shook a little. "In this cove?"

"Why not? At such close quarters both ships will be battered to kindling, and they know it. And we've fifteen guns to their six. Charge every gun, six with chain and grapeshot to clear the decks, nine with heavy shot. Four to aim at the gun deck, five at their waterline."

Hanberry's face was pale, but as his men streamed on deck, he gave the order.

They rushed to the gun deck and their guns.

"What's her name, Captain? I cannot see it from here."

"The Haydn."

"Ahoy, Haydn!" I called. "Surrender at once or be blown out of the water!"

There was a long moment of silence. Then a voice called out, "Who speaks? Where is Captain Duval?"

"Barnabas Sackett is the name, and your Duval hangs from the pine yonder, where you will hang also unless you give up the ship."

A man stepped into the rigging in plain sight. "I'll see you in hell first!" he shouted. "We took your ship once and we'll do it again!"

There was no sign of Pike.

"Is that what you all say?" My voice carried easily across the narrow gap between the vessels. "If you don't want to die for the man who spoke, then throw him into the water. If he isn't in the water by the time I count three-!"

From over the bulwark I could see crouching men running to man the guns.

"Just a minute here," he called. "Let's talk this over!"

"Fire!" I replied.

The galleon jolted sharply with the concussion and the broadside's recoil rolled us over, then back. Bracing myself, hand gripping a stay, I peered through the billowing smoke.

"Load numbers three, four, and five with grape," I ordered, "and stand by to fire."

Hanberry rushed to me. "They'd have surrendered!" he shouted angrily. "They were ready to surrender!"

"They were preparing to fire," I replied shortly, "while he talked."

A man ran forward and dove into the water, then two more.

As the smoke lifted somewhat we could see that the mainm'st was down, that portions of the rigging had been carried away, and that great, gaping holes had been ripped in the gundeck. Five holes at the waterline were pouring water into the hold.

"Damn you!" Hanberry shouted. "Damn you for a scoundrel! They'd have surrendered!"

Pike and other men were rushing from the pines toward the shore. Beyond our view, and along the shore, there was a sudden clash of arms, the sound of guns and yells.

As suddenly as they began, the sounds ceased. Then moments later, a boat appeared around the stern of the Haydn.

Turning to Hanberry, I covered him with a pistol. "I will take your weapons, Captain," I said politely. "After this is over they will be returned."

"I'll be damned if you do!" he said.

"Would you rather be aloft there?" I asked mildly.

Swearing, he handed over a pistol and his sword. It was a gentleman's dress sword, hardly what one needed in such a place as this. Still, it was a weapon.

Pike and the others had reached our deck. "Sorry for the delay, Captain Sackett, but they had a party on the beach there, and we'd have lost men trying it. As you wished, I waited."

There was still no sign of the fluyt. "Gather all the weapons," I said. "Do what you can for the wounded."

They worked swiftly. Turning to look about me at the galleon, I could see no evidence of damage. Duval and his men seemed to have taken the Flemish ship without a struggle.

The Haydn was listing heavily to the starboard.

Pike returned. "What happened to the fluyt, Cap'n? Did she na come around?"

"We'll find her, Pike. Let us speak with Hanberry, and do you stand beside me when the talking is done."

It was no easy thing to sort out what remained. The Haydn was a wreck, not that good seamen could not put her into some kind of shape, but it would take much time, and much hard work.

A dozen or so of the Haydn's men had been killed in the broadside we loosed upon them, and most of those killed were the ones who had rushed to line their guns upon us. A dozen and a half were wounded, more or less, and some of the Flemish lads had cuts and scrapes from the fighting, but nothing to speak of.

Hanberry was in no good mood when we sat down together. "This is foul treatment!" he protested. "I am an honest merchant, with an honest crew. Who are you, anyway, Sackett?"

"For the moment, a pirate, it would seem. A privateer, perhaps, although I confess I have no letter of marque."

"Return my ship to me or I shall see you hang!"

His remark made me smile, for was I not already in risk of my neck? The problem facing me was a perplexing one, and I was in no mood for problems. I wished only to have a good ship under me and to be again on my way to Raleigh's land. But the only available ship was Hanberry's vessel. With it in my possession, I might retake the fluyt, rescue Lila-if she needed it-and then be on the way to our rendezvous with Abigail and Captain Tempany.

"Return your ship?" I said. "You have no ship, Hanberry. It was taken from you, and when I came here you were in danger of being skinned alive. You had lost your ship, Captain. You had almost lost your life, and the lives of your men as well. I took not the ship from you, but from Duval, who hangs up above us.

"You have water for blood, Captain. You were afraid to fight, afraid to fire, afraid to resist or not to resist. I suggest when next you come to shore, if you live to do so, that you stay there. That you find yourself a shop in a town that has a good night watch, and always be under cover with the doors locked by sundown.

"Understand this, Captain. You lost your ship. You have no ship. Duval had it, now I have it. What happens to you now depends upon what I decide, and I may leave you here with Duval, to settle it between you."

Oh, he hated me! He hated me not only for what I said but for what I had done that he had not done.

Whether I was a good man I did not know. I knew I was a man who wished to survive, and that to survive I must use both wits and strength.

"If I can use this ship to retake my fluyt, I shall. There are reasons why the attempt must be made. If I cannot, I shall sail in it where I am going."

"And what will you do with us?" he asked. I left that to his imagination. He had seemed, when I had first seen him sitting there, bound and facing Duval with contempt, a brave man. He was nothing of the kind, only a good talker and a hater without the will to fight as he must.

I now had sixteen men. Hanberry had at least twenty, but several of his had already lined up with mine in the fighting and the work.

Later, I put it to them honestly. "I want my fluyt again. If I get it, I shall not want this craft. The cargo is mine as a prize of war. If you choose to sail with me, and to leave with me when we have the fluyt, you shall be rewarded. I can promise you fighting, hope of rich reward, and a chance to go home. If you choose to stay with him, I shall give no argument."

Nine of the twenty chose to join with me, several quibbled and were uncertain. I merely told them, "We will strip the damaged vessel of her cargo, her guns, whatever is aboard of value. We will do it now."

One of those who had declared for Hanberry said, "And if we've no mind to work?"

I smiled. "I hope, then, that you're a good fisherman. There are fish to eat, and shellfish, too, by the signs along the shore. So try your luck. Those who do not help will not eat."

He shifted his feet,. glowering at me.

The men available I turned to on Duval's ship. We dumped three guns over the side to right her a bit, although it did but little, then we opened her hatches and went to work.

The several ships Duval had looted had netted him little, yet there was much powder and shot, a great store of lead, some foodstuffs the water had damaged already, but much else still of value.

When we had gathered much of it on deck, Pike took several of the men and warped Hanberry's galleon alongside. Rigging a sling and tackle, we began transferring the loot from Duval's Haydn to the galleon.

It was not a rich cargo, as such cargoes go, but the powder, shot, and lead were worth much more than their weight in gold to me.

Finally, we lowered Duval from his pine tree. He stared at me with such hatred as I have rarely seen. "I'll have your heart out for this!"

"Hoist him aloft," I told Blue.

Duval grabbed at my arm. "No! My God, man, you can't do that!"

"Then keep a civil tongue in your head."

Turning to Blue, I said, "Put him in the brig on his own ship, and put a man on watch. If he tries to escape while you do so, shoot him."

At last I stood on the beach, facing Hanberry.

"You have the Haydn. If you have resolution enough you can patch her up and sail her out of here."

He stared at me, choked with fury. By the rules of war, his own ship was mine, and his cargo also. Yet I promised myself that if I could find the fluyt and retake her, then I'd return his ship to him with those of his crew I had aboard.

We left him there upon the shore.

On the afterdeck I met with Pike and Blue. "You know Handsel best. What do you think he would do?"

"I have been thinkin' of that," Pike said. "He'd but twelve men aboard ... not all of them able. He can handle the fluyt with the number, but he'll not be able to fight her. Nor will he return to Newfoundland, for well he knows they'd be askin' of me there, and of Blue here. I think he would sail on down the coast."

We talked of it until the day was gone and the stars were out, trying each possibility and the arguments against. Finally, I sent Pike below for sleep and held the watch alone.

She was a neat craft, this Flemish galleon, not large but easily handled as were the Dutch craft. With so many ships upon the water, the Dutch had learned they must make their ships easier to handle, and had done so. They were cracking fine seamen, the Dutch.

Midnight was long past when I awakened Pike.

The clouds had cleared away and the stars were bright in the sky. There was a mild sea running, and enough wind to carry canvas without worry. We were making good time at last, heading south and a little west. At this point the coast of America slanted away to the south-west, and I knew from the charts there were scattered islands off the coast.

And somewhere far down the coast, without me, was Abigail, in what kind of weather I knew not.

But first I must find Lila and free her ... or them!

Chapter 13

Now being at sea again, and south-bound, my spirit was at rest, for though much trouble might come, I had my destination before me.

The continent lay west of us, just beyond the horizon, and we kept a man aloft at all times, alert to see any vessel that might hove into sight. But mostly we looked for the fluyt.

It was not in me to go a-pirating, nor was it large in the minds of my crew, for well they knew we had a goodly store below decks and if a port was made with what we had, all should do well.

Soon we sailed closer to the shore. Twice we sighted small boats, but they fled on seeing us, taking their cargoes of fish into shallow waters where we could not follow. Yet one fellow was close enough that we hailed him.

He came alongside, wary of us, but curious. I traded some line and canvas for fish, and asked about the fluyt.

"Aye, see her we did! She's lying up in the lee of a high, rocky island a half-day's sail to the south, or was before daylight. We saw her before, and not likely to forget it, either, with a great, tall woman at the wheel, hair flying in the wind!"

"A woman?"

"You think me a liar? Well, I am neither a liar nor drunk ... a woman, I say!

And such a woman as you never saw!"

So now it seemed we were close, and all my troubles might be resolved at once, yet I was not one to count money before it was paid me. I bade good-bye to the fisherman and we had up some canvas and took our way south, with me sore afraid the fluyt would have flown before we had sight of her. Yet for once good fortune was with me, and we rounded into the cove to see her lying there, waiting.

We came in close enough and let go our anchor, and a boat to the water almost as quickly.

She was at the rail when I came alongside.

"Is it you then?" she asked. "Full long enough you took!"

"What in blazes happened? Where's Peter Handsel?"

"He's below ... confined in the rope-locker. The crew liked my cooking better than his sailing, so I've been sailing-master and cook as well."

She looked closely at the Flemish craft. "A good ship," she decided, "but I like this one better."

We wasted no time with further talk. If it pleased the Lord that I come well home again to Raleigh's land, I'd be happy, and if it were soon, happier still.

It was true I had done well with my fishing in troubled waters, but more by good fortune than by my own efforts, although I had not hesitated when it was time to act, and sometimes that is the whole face of it.

With Pike and Blue in the cabin, I spoke them fair. We'd rich cargo below, and I'd taken them to it, and so I told them I should take the powder, lead, round-shot, and the beads and trade goods. The richest of the cloth they might have.

So I divided the cargo there, and they had no word to say against it, and my portion was shifted to the fluyt. Much of what I wanted most for Raleigh's land they could easily come by in Newfoundland, but the cloth was a rich thing.