Across The Sea (12 page)

“These fishermen will take you
home,” one of the sailors said. “These men are well known to
Captain Strick.”

Lily shook her head. She could
not believe she was being sent away. She was being kept from
helping. Everyone was being so foolish.

From the fishing boat’s cabin,
three men came up to the cockpit to greet Lily, all three smiling
down at her. The eldest was hairless on top, with white hair
surrounding his bald pate. The one in the middle possessed a small
frame and petite, child-like hands which gripped the gunwale of the
boat. The youngest was taller than the other two, with impressive,
globular muscles on his arms and chest.

“Welcome little girl,” said the
eldest. “We shall have you back home in a trifle.”

“I refuse to board your boat,”
Lily answered. She could smell eggs fried in fresh, creamy butter.
“I don’t want this taken personally but I have better things to
do.”

The eldest man smiled again.
The youngest of the trio lost his smile, not appreciating one bit
the words spilling from Lily’s tongue.

The eldest turned to the two
Royal Navy sailors. “We’ll handle things from here,” he
offered.

The sailors smiled back. They
both understood all too well what this man would have to contend
with. “Thank you,” said one of them and they both nodded and walked
off.

“Sal,” the eldest said to the
youngest fisherman. “Please fetch Miss Lily and bring her to the
cockpit.”

Sal stepped off the fishing
boat and picked Lily up in one of his thick arms. Lily remained
nonplussed to the whole affair as Sal hopped back onto the boat and
sat her in the cockpit beside the tiller. As Sal stepped away, Lily
just stared off toward the ocean.

“We are having our breakfast
below,” the eldest fisherman said. “When you are ready to join us,
please do so. Afterwards, we shall be on our way. The quicker you
make your decision, the quicker you shall get home.”

“This is ridiculous, Manfred,”
Sal interjected. “We shouldn’t have to wait for her. She’s not my
captain.”

“
I
am your captain,”
Manfred answered, turning toward Sal. “And trust me, I know
children.” He clasped Sal’s shoulder to lead him inside.

“Manfred is correct,” the
petite fisherman added. “Manfred knows. He has much more experience
in life than you, Sal.”

Manfred smiled. “Oh Toddy, you
are being much too kind. I only know…”

“Now Manfred,” Toddy
interrupted. “Please. We have lived much, much more than small Sal
here.”

Lily turned to look at Sal. He
was all muscle. Not small at all. Sal, however, said nothing. His
face blushed red from feeling shameful.

Toddy continued. “We just know
what we know. Sal benefits boatloads just from listening to what we
have to say on a variety of subjects.”

Manfred smiled at Sal, and
nodded his head in agreement with Toddy.

Through the open doorway, all
three fishermen stepped down into the cabin.

Lily looked up at the sky. The
wind blowing had weight, strength. Lily looked down into the open
cabin. All three men were seated at a small table, eating
breakfast.

“She should come inside and eat
with us,” Sal said. “This is silly.”

“Sal,” Manfred admonished. “I
know children. Remember.”

Sal, blushing again, turned to
Toddy, as Toddy shot him a severe look and shook his head.

“Just enjoy your breakfast,”
Manfred concluded.

“I can’t,” Sal burst, now very
flustered. “Not with her out there. We should bring her inside.
Manfred, please.”

“Sal!” Manfred barked, losing
hold of his calm veneer. “I know children…” He took a deep breath
and lowered his voice as he continued with, “She will come to
us…”

“She will come to us…” Toddy
echoed, nodding his head.

“When she is ready,” Manfred
finished.

“When she is ready,” Toddy
reiterated.

“This is ridiculous!” Sal
shouted.

Someone slammed their hand on
the table.

Lily stood and jumped off the
back of the fishing boat, landing into her own small craft. Almost
as fast as a finger snap, she untied her boat, raised her main sail
and moved off toward the sea. Behind her, she heard furniture crash
and dishes smash. She knew it would take some time before the
fishermen realized she had escaped, underestimating what a girl
like Lily was capable of.

* * *

By mid-morning, the HMS Glide
moved past a wild, wooded island.

On deck, Captain Strick turned
to First Lieutenant Kenworth.

“We must search that island,”
he ordered. “Bodin or the pirates might be hiding there, waiting
for us to be as far away from Grand Marine as possible before
setting course again.”

Within five minutes, two
rowboats took flight toward the small mass of forest and land.
Captain Strick, even though he was still bandaged, stood in the
lead boat, ready once again to face the prowling killers.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the crew of the
HMS Glide, deep within the forest of the island, Francis was hidden
by Bodin under a stack of loose, hefty branches. He was lying on
his back, his mouth gagged with a thick strip of cloth and both
ankles and wrists bound together by the chain which was secured
with a padlock to the bulky, exposed root of a tree. Before they
had landed on the island, Bodin had spent the early morning hours
sailing in a circle, accomplishing in the process to lose the newly
appointed Captain Templeton and his epic HMS Whisper.

Francis lay still, wondering
where Bodin had gone off to.
There’s got to be a way to
escape
, he thought. He attempted to move his wrists to loosen
the chain, but the chain hold was too taut and unyielding to make a
difference.

Branches cracked under
someone’s feet.
Bodin’s coming back.

Francis tried to see through
the jumble of branches lying against his face. A dark colour was
traveling through the forest. He blinked and looked again. This
time, without a doubt, he saw the moving hue of navy blue.
Royal
Navy sailors! Yes! They’ll find me and outnumber Bodin. Surely
there’s a whole ship full nearby. This might be all over.
Finally.

The patch of navy moved closer.
Francis wriggled his body in the hopes of shaking the branches and
calling attention to himself. It was not enough. The branches moved
too little. Francis wanted to shout out that he was right under
their noses but the gag in his mouth kept him from doing so. All
Francis communicated was a muffled “Mmmmmmm.”

He heard more branches
breaking, the noise now lower in volume.

The sailors are moving away.
No!

He sounded, “Mmmmmmm,” again to
stop them, his face turning beet red. Through the heap of branches
and leaves, Francis glimpsed the patch of navy dissipate from view.
Soon, it was gone.

* * *

In her small sailboat, Lily had
been trailing the HMS Glide at a considerable distance. Her heart
propelled with excitement when she noticed that the Glide had
stopped moving and appeared to be anchored close to an island up
ahead. She would now be able to catch up. Much to her
disappointment, however, the Glide did not anchor very long before
she set course toward the horizon once more and Lily felt no nearer
to her than before. She set her sail to turn around, back toward
Grand Marine. Her small boat would never survive the open sea.

* * *

On the island, Bodin stood
behind a tree watching as the HMS Glide sailed away.

In the wilderness, under the
heavy brushwood, Francis felt abandoned. Branches broke nearby.
Some were then removed from the stack. Francis looked up.

“Francis,” Lily whispered,
elated to have found him. She removed the rest of the branches and
reached down to undo the strip gagging him.

“Bodin’s nearby,” Francis
whispered back.

“I’ll get you free quick
enough,” Lily answered.

“You don’t have the key.”

Lily glanced at the padlock
locking the chain around the bulky, exposed tree root.

“This thing,” she said,
undaunted. “Simple.”

She undid Francis’ belt and
whipped it off.

“What are you doing?” Francis
asked, perplexed.

“Your belt has way more uses
than just holding up your breeches.”

“Something your father taught
you?”

“If you could’ve seen
everything he could do with his.”

Lily pinched the pin on the
buckle and stuck it into the lock’s keyhole. She jiggled it a few
times, feeling around for something. She pulled on the lock,
clicking it open.

“We’re old news,” she said,
pulling the chain off the root. “Time to fly.”

Francis sat up as Lily
unwrapped the chain from around his wrists.

“I almost turned my boat
around,” Lily continued, “but at the last minute, I thought I
should check what Captain Strick and his crew were looking for
here. I thought these loose branches looked suspicious. I knew
something was hidden under them.”

“You’re here alone?”

“Yep.”

Once Francis’ wrists were free,
he unwrapped the chain from around his ankles and ran off with Lily
who led the way through the woods.

“Wait,” he said, halting.
“Wait.”

Lily stopped and turned back,
gasping. “What?”

“I can’t,” Francis answered. “I
can’t go. I have to stay with him.”

“Why?” Lily was baffled.

“That man… he knows where my
brother is. He’s taking me to him.”

Lily gave Francis a bewildered
look.

“It’s the only way I’ll ever
get to see him again.”

“There’s other ways to find
him,” Lily countered. “And I’ll help you. Captain Strick will help
you. But you have to get away from that man. He kills people,
Francis.”

“Strick and the Navy don’t care
about Michael. They care about the treasure. Bodin told me.
Everyone’s after the Treasure of Atlantis and my brother’s the only
one who knows where it is.”

“The Treasure of Atlantis?”
Lily was stupefied.

“They want to use me to make my
brother tell them where the treasure is.”

“I can’t believe the Captain
didn’t tell me this.”

“He didn’t want you to know how
greedy they all are.”

Lily was speechless.

“Help me see my brother again,”
Francis implored. “Lock me back up under the branches.”

“What? But…” Lily stared
unbelieving into Francis’ face. She soon recognized the
determination in his eyes. It reminded her of her, ever since the
day she learned her father was dead. She sighed and shook her
head.

“Quick,” she ordered, running
back in the direction they had come from. Francis followed. Once
they reached the branches, Francis picked up the chain and handed
it to her. They moved with great haste; Bodin might appear at any
moment. Lily wrapped the chain around Francis’ wrists, then his
ankles and then around the exposed tree root. She locked the
padlock, and, one by one, placed the branches back on top of
Francis.

A branch snapped behind
her.

Lily scampered the other way,
into the woods. Francis heard more branches breaking.

Soon the brushwood covering
Francis was removed again and he looked up to see Bodin who
unlocked the padlock with a key from a brass ring of keys. He did
not appear to suspect anything.

Lily is safe
, Francis
thought as Bodin led him back to his boat. The small craft was
hidden under more greenery in the water close by.

As Bodin sailed away with
Francis chained inside, Lily watched, sitting at the bow of her own
vessel, half hidden behind the island. She could not help but think
she had just seen the last of her dear, new friend.

Lily had to let the authorities
know she had just seen Bodin with Francis. Dejected, she shifted
her sail to turn back toward Grand Marine, as a gush of wind
slapped against her face.

Her breath stopped short by
what she saw next: a fishing boat approached from the mainland.
Though still at a fair distance, at the bow, Lily recognized the
man standing there. He was wearing a wide-brimmed, brown hat.

Leonard
.

Lily turned back to move her
sail.
How did he escape Grand Marine without the Royal Navy
seeing him? It can’t be him at the bow. It just looks like that
nasty cutthroat.

Lily turned again to look. The
high wind whipped the fishing boat toward her. She now had a better
view of the man’s face, and he appeared to be smiling at her. It
was
Captain Leonard.

Another man appeared into view
behind Leonard. This man sat in the boat’s cockpit. Lily’s heart
jumped again. It was the Captain’s crazed cohort. The one with the
maniacal sword.

Lily tried to catch her breath.
“Don’t panic,” she told herself. “There’s a way to make this work
for me.”

* * *

Captain Leonard, grinning,
focused on the small person manning the teacup of a sailboat, with
its three-bird flag flapping in the wind. “It’s the little girl,”
he informed Ratwell. “The little girl who put an arrow in my
thigh.”

Ratwell smiled. That same
little wench had shot an arrow into his left wrist. The wound was
now healing, wrapped in a bandage, but Ratwell had not been able to
think of anything else but this child. No one had ever done this
much harm to him and gotten away, unaccountable. Ratwell felt a
great need to do something to this girl. A need, he now realized
with hunger, which was about to be fulfilled.

After almost being riddled with
many more arrows and bullets from Captain Mann’s crew, Ratwell had
gone into hiding within the backstreets of Grand Marine and had
discovered Captain Leonard in a garbage-strewn, narrow alleyway,
pulling the arrow from his thigh and bandaging the wound with a
ripped shirt. Captain Leonard could still walk and Ratwell’s wrist
would mend and by no means affect his swordsmanship – but as they
reunited in that dingy, foul smelling alley, both pirates vowed
that one day, they would find this child and make her pay.
Dearly.