Chapter 10
Ink blotted Captain Johnson’s parchment and stained his hand.
He’d been sloppy, his swan quill flying as he captured Mary’s words.
Her tale proved even more extraordinary than he’d anticipated.
A girl posing as a boy, moving through the world as a young man, undetected for so long?
This female pirate business was proving to be a enterprise indeed.
Who could resist such a tale? Beyond the shock, he felt something more in the story, something more in her.
A surge of compassion. The genuine curiosity that drove his endeavor.
It didn’t hurt if he could spin a profit from such an account, he comforted himself.
At that moment, he realized Mary had stopped speaking. She stared with unflinching dark eyes at the prison wall. Her shallow breathing reminded him of her present suffering and delicate condition. The stench of vomit returned him to his senses. The stiff, three-legged stool below him.
“Might I fetch you more water?” he asked, hoping he might urge her to continue. “I did call for a doctor.” He needed this woman to carry on, at least for however many days or weeks his inquiries took. He rather hoped she’d pull through and live.
She’s a convicted pirate, he had to remind himself. Regrettably, if she didn’t die here of prison fever, the gallows would finish the job. He shivered.
Focus. He had to focus on his work.
“Did you join, then?” Johnson asked.
“Mmm?” Mary mumbled, followed by a long silence.
“Did you do as Captain Southwick advised?”
No answer.
“Did you join the cavalry in Holland?” he tried, a bit louder.
But she was already asleep.