Captain Adam (13 page)

They were alone. Three would have crowded the place uncomfortably, even indecently if the Honorable Maisie Treadway was one, and the rule was that whenever anybody wanted to visit with the patient, the lady, called down to, would come up first.

Of course they all did visit.

"They ain't fretting about me," the bosun growled. "They just want to get a look at them corsets hanging up there."

"Jeth," Adam said now, "do you think this vessel's under a spell?"

"No, not any more I don't. Did used to. But not since we come through that crazy storm without snapping a stick."

Adam said slowly: "We're losing the services of a cracker jack bosun."

"Not for long. I'll be ramming around again right soon, I expect." He looked up suddenly. "Or won't I?"

That gave Adam an opening in which to say what he had come to say, but it chanced that he wanted a little more palaver first.

"Do you think Lady Maisie's a witch, Jeth?"

"She could be, but I don't think so. You ought to know."

"I don't think so either. But I can see where anybody else might."

"Aye, she's a dreadful attractive female."

"Aye," said Adam.

Jethro hitched himself up in the bunk, or tried to, but gave it up, wincing, when a crash of pain reminded him of his leg.

"That brings me to the other reason I want to get out of here, Cap'n. I'm used to close quarters all right, but not with a woman, and especially a woman like this. Oh, it ain't her fault! She's been mighty kind with me and not pushy. Hangs up a couple of skirts for a curtain whenever she changes any of her clothes, which she's doing just about all the time. Talks to me, to keep me from thinking about things. But I do think about things just the same. Can't help it."

Jethro Gardner actually was blushing.

"It ain't healthy. Don't like to talk about a thing like this, Cap'n. But you understand. It's goldarn hard on a man, all the time."

"I understand," said Adam Long.

"That's the other reason why I want to get out."

Adam nodded.

"We'll get you out. Right awav. We were going to anyway."

"Oh?"

Jeth was studying his face. Adam kept looking at the other bunk, his erstwhile own, piled high now with frilly fabrics, ribbons, kerchiefs. That was where she slept.

Jeth paused a moment, so's to be sure of his voice.

"You mean you don't like the way my leg is, then?"

"No, I don't, Jeth. Neither do the others." 82

"And you reckon we ought to—ought—"

"I think we should, Jeth. That's what the others think, too. They've all looked at it. Course, we won't do it if you don't say go ahead."

"But that's what you think, yourself?"

"Aye."

"Want another look at it?"

"Yes, I do."

A few minutes later: "Still feel that way, Cap'n?"

"I do, Jeth. I truthful do. Down here in this hot climate— And we certainly don't want you to die on us."

"Don't want to die myself, comes to that." He was silent a moment. "There's God's plenty of knives, but what about the bone?"

"I got a saw, in my carpenter's kit."

"Oh—You'll do this yourself, Cap'n? Personally?"

"I wouldn't ask anybody else to."

"No, you wouldn't. That's the way you are. All right—if you're going to do it yourself I'll say go ahead. But I wish you'd sprung it on me, sort of. It'll take some time to hot up an iron."

"One's all hotted up out there right now, Jeth."

"Oh."

Adam drew a bottle from under his shirt. It was half full of rum, the half Seth Selden had left. Adam took the cork out.

"You'll be using a bit of this?"

"A hit of it?" Jeth took the botde. "You can just throw that cork away, Cap'n. Throw it right away."

"May God guide me," Adam said somberly to Maisie a litde later. "And keep your hatch shut. He's sure to scream."

"You've never done anything like this before?"

"No."

"You'll need more courage than he will."

"Aye."

This was the first time he had ever been in the cabin with her, and it sure was close quarters, as Jeth had said, especially with all those things on the wall and piled around. It would have been impossible not to brush her, at least. He didn't try. He glanced up through the hatch to assure himself that only the legs of the man who was waiting with Adam's carpenter's kit were visible. Then deliberately he put his arms around Maisie and kissed her on the mouth.

It was more wonderful, even, than he had dared to hope. She had wanted him to do it. He knew that, felt it. Like him, she staggered back a bit afterward, as though the kiss had taken strength out of her legs, as indeed it had.

They didn't look at one another.

"G-God be wi' ye, Adam."

"Aye," he said, and went up the ladder.

The cutting itself was unexpectedly easy. But the sawing was hard, the bone. That round slimy surface slipped and splintered.

Jeth made moans, some he probably didn't even know about, but that was all. They had him spread-eagled on the main hatch, a man at each arm, a man at each leg. Not until the iron was brought over, spicking and spitting, fresh out of the fire, red-to-turning-to-white all up and down, did Jethro open his mouth as a signal that he wanted the stick of wood they'd whittled for him. They put this into his mouth, and he fastened his teeth on it, and he closed his eyes.

This part Adam did fast. He had to, because of the blood, which for all their precautions was gushing. But he had to do it fast anyway, if he was going to do it at all.

He didn't vomit afterward, nor did Jeth Gardner faint. But there wasn't much idle chit-chat aboard the Goodwill to Men that evening.

The skipper took the graveyard watch, seeking stillness, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep. Nobody was blaming him for anything; and indeed he had done a good job of it, considering; but he thought that he would never shake the feeling of that saw out of his hands, nor force from his ears the hissing of the blood when they cauterized the stump.

He had not seen Maisie since sundown. Her slide was open, her candle out. He stared thoughtfully at the square of blackness there in the deck, dwelling in his mind on how close she was. Was she asleep? This was an exceptionally quiet night; the moon was high, the seas low. He could hear the schooner working in her customary way, the sounds any sailing man hears without noticing them unless they change or cease—the squeal of timbers, occasionally the clunk of a block on deck, the hum of air in the shrouds, the shush at the bows, and the persistent, hollow, chuckling gurgle of the wake. Below these he fancied sometimes that he could hear Maisie breathing.

He rose, loosely lashed the tiller, which was steady anyway, and walked around the deck several times on bare feet.

When he'd pass it he would eye the black square that was the entrance to the cabin. What was she thinking of? Or was she asleep? But he believed that she was awake, lying motionless down there.

The jury boom kicked and fussed a bit, and he reset it, glad of something to do. Goodwill to Men, largely because of this jury job—a good enough job in its way but by no means what Jeth Gardner would have 84

turned out—under a greatly shortened foresail was not making her usual speed. Still she was graceful, and stepped daintily through the sea.

Nobody else was up and around. Adam, who had dismissed the tiller-man, had the deck to himself.

He roamed.

Now here was that black hole before him again, the square of darkness. Seemed like he always came back to it, no matter which way he walked. He stood spread-legged looking down at it. Though the deck was washed by the moon, none of this appeared able to penetrate the opening, which looked packed with a darkness that was not merely an absence of light.

It suggested a pit. Was it a pit? The pit? Was that man lost who lowered himself into it?

Her voice was a whisper, coiling up to him like smoke.

"Is - Is that you?"

"Aye," said Adam.

A pause. Then: "Are you coming down?"

"Aye," said Adam.

He could not see her, when he turned at the foot of the ladder, stooping; and indeed he couldn't see anything down there; but he knew exactly where she was. He could not hear her breathing. He went to her, and her arms, all bare, slid past his arms and went around his neck; and her breast was bare, too, and when he started kissing it he learned that she was sobbing. She fell back, holding him tight, all her flesh trembling and twitching beneath him.

"We— We've waited so long, Adam."

1 O The moon was low and large, and still bright, scattering se-

XO quins, and to the east the sky gave no hint of dawn, the

morning Adam came topside to see the sloop chasing them. He started to yell.

He had lingered below at Maisie's insistence. Each night he took the graveyard watch, his own helmsman; and if the crew divined the reason for this—and he believed that they did—nevertheless they stayed in the forecastle and didn't snoop. Each night, too, he and Maisie had their quarrel: why didn't he remain a little longer? Their first, it was a pretty quarrel, and playful, yet it held an undercurrent of seriousness, for Maisie needed reassurance and she was getting annoyed by the haste with which Adam climbed back to the deck, almost as if he was eager to escape from her. Again and again he had pointed out that a ship should

be handled, never neglected in any part. But it could steer itself, it could keep its own course, couldn't it? the lady had asked. True, the skipper had replied; and it was true, too, that there in the cabin, no matter what else he might be feeling at the time, he could feel instantly any change of the wind, any shift in sailing, or unusual activity or lack of activity of rigging or canvas—and get topside in time to correct it. But still it wasn't right to leave a helm unmanned, a deck unwatched, even for a matter of minutes, the skipper had declared. "Kiss me again, my pet, my lover," the lady had whispered, "never mind about that steering stick-kiss me."

This sailorman's instinct, this sense of duty, would have been sufficient reason for Adam to cut short his visits, precious and unforgettable though every moment of them was. But there was another reason, one he didn't mention to Maisie: he was no longer sure of his crew.

What might have been a mutiny, and certainly seemed the beginning of one, had been nipped in the bud by the visit of the coasters. Then had come the freak storm, and Jeth Gardner's injury. Lady Maisie had shamed the hands by her kindness to the bosun; and the weather was better now, too, and they weren't forever being chased. But suspicion persisted. Adam could see this not from the way they looked at Maisie but rather from the way they did not look at her, the way they dropped their eyes at her approach.

With a crew like that you did well to watch your deck.

Of the loyalty of Resolved Forbes there could be no doubt; but the hands knew this, and they'd be unlikely to talk in his presence, for the mate, berthed in the forecastle now, would stand for no nonsense. Jeth, too, would be loyal; but Jeth couldn't be counted upon, in case of a fracas. Eliphalet Mellish, devoted to Captain Long, was dead. John Bond and the boy Abel Rellison were well-meaning but they could be influenced. Peterson and Waters definitely hated Adam. Worst of all, the ringleader, a dirty man and a dangerous one, was Seth Selden, And Seth was sincere, unfortunately. Cynical in so many things, a scoffer, he had his passionate convictions, one of which was that Maisie Treadway had cast a spell over the schooner. The very force of his feeling in this respect would carry weight with the crew.

Then, too, Seth had been knocked down, and his was not a forgiving nature. He might grin to Adam's face, and outwardly, about his work, seem the same, but Adam caught dark glances now and then, and from all that Seth said privately poison dripped.

What's more, they were heading back for Newport where Seth did

not dare go now. How grave had been his crimes and how much of them

had been uncovered by the Queen's collector, Adam did not know; but

the charges could hardly have been trivial if they caused Seth to sneak out

of Blake's the night before the sailing and stow away aboard the schooner of which—though he didn't know this—he had just been elected captain. Had he planned to jump ship and refrained from doing so in Kingston only because of the press gangs? Or perhaps he hoped to fit the schooner up with guns and take her "on the account"? Could that be why he had been so eager to get the captaincy?

True, they were going to put in at New York first, but even New York might be too near home for the fugitive Seth Selden, decidedly a man to be watched.

All of this, however, Adam did not impart to Maisie when they had their hushed loving quarrels about his departure. Each night for four nights he returned to deck promptly; but on the fifth night he capitulated.

No man who is in love is wholly sane; but there are degrees of daze. Adam Long wasted no time when he saw that sloop.

She was fast. Water creamed sweetly at her bows, and she had everything conceivable cracked on—even studdingsails—everything but a sprit-sail, for she was going too fast and dipping too much for that. Her wake fanned out all turbulent behind her.

She was not much larger than Goodwill, but her hull was disproportionately high, especially forward: it looked even in this light as though false bulwarks had been built there in order to conceal something —or somebody.

There was no one in sight. The sloop might have been sailing itself, as until a moment ago Goodwill had been, a ghost ship. She showed no colors. She was dark.

Resolved Forbes was the first to tumble out, but Jeth Gardner was not with him, as once he would have been, nor was John Bond going to be of much use, with his left wrist still out of joint. Nevertheless the men moved fast. They did not need to be told how serious was their situation. All they had to do was glance astern.

"How in thunderation she ever get so close?" asked the mate.

Adam Long did not answer.

They had been running almost directly before the wind, making up the middle of the Old Bahama Channel, with the islands to starboard, Cuba to larboard, neither in sight. The moon would soon be down, but dawn was coming: there was no risk of going aground somewhere. Adam ignored the course, the compass and chart, and put her sharply about, yawing.