Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Go tell the King of England,
Go tell him thus from me,
If he reigns King of all the land,
I will reign King at sea.
— ANONYMOUS, “A FAMOUS SEA FIGHT BETWEEN CAPTAIN WARD AND THE RAINBOW”
The tropical sun dusted the palm trees with its fading light as Captain Gideon Horn of the Satyr and the ship’s cook, Silas Drummond, climbed the path through Praia carved into Santiago’s mountainside.
Santiago was the last and largest Cape Verde Island Gideon and his men had visited.
They’d gone to the smaller islands first, thinking they’d have better luck finding what they wanted, but they’d been wrong.
Now Gideon feared they wouldn’t find it even on Santiago.
So he’d decided instead to buy provisions to carry back to Atlantis Island. If Praia couldn’t provide them with what they really needed, there was no point in staying here any longer.
He scanned the nearest market stall, where a grinning native woman wearing a crumpled straw hat offered bolts of dyed cotton and called out to passersby in the bastard Portuguese the islanders used.
“How much?” Gideon asked in English, then waited while Silas, who spoke a little Portuguese, translated.
The woman shifted her gaze to him and let forth a torrent of words, gesturing to Gideon with jerky motions.
His burly translator chuckled. “She says if the ‘American pirate’ wants the goods for his lady, he’ll have to pay dearly for ’em.”
Gideon scowled. “Tell her I don’t have a lady and am unlikely to have one soon.” Before Silas could get out a word, he added, “How did she know who I am, anyway?”
Silas talked to the woman animatedly for a few moments. Apparently Gideon’s presence at her stall alarmed her.
When at last Silas faced Gideon, he was tugging on the ends of his heavy brown beard.
“It seems they all know that the notorious Pirate Lord and his crew are here, Cap’n.
She took one look at that saber tucked in your belt, and figured you were him.
” He looked thoughtful. “Maybe that’s why we’ve had little luck gettin’ what we want from these damned islanders.
When they found out who we were, they started hidin’ their young women. ”
“Maybe.” Gideon shot the stall-keeper an ingratiating smile that didn’t seem to mollify her. “Tell the confounded woman I don’t want her cloth after all. What good does it do us if we can’t get any women?”
Silas nodded solemnly as Gideon spun on his heel, headed for the docks. After muttering a few words to the stall-keeper, Silas hurried after Gideon, moving with surprising speed on his wooden leg. “So what do we do now, Cap’n?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to talk to the crew. Maybe some of them have had better luck today.”
“Maybe,” Silas said, though he didn’t look hopeful.
They strode down the rock-strewn paths in silence. This whole scheme was pointless. Gideon should have seen that from the beginning.
Suddenly, Barnaby Kent, his first mate, rushed up the mountain path toward them. “You’ll never guess what’s come into port!”
Barnaby was the only Englishman Gideon had ever allowed to join his crew, but he’d never regretted it. The man was a gifted seaman, even if he dressed like a dandy.
“What is it?” Gideon asked as Barnaby drew to a halt in front of them, gasping. It must be something fantastic to excite Barnaby enough to hurry. The man generally strolled languidly about, surveying everything and everybody with a jaundiced eye.
Barnaby bent over and planted his hands on his thighs as he sought to catch his breath. “A ship … has come into port … one that might interest us.”
Gideon groaned. “We’ve been through all that, Barnaby. We’ve got enough blasted jewels and gold and silver to fill a warship. It’s women we need, not more prizes.”
“Aye, sir.” Barnaby straightened, then took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. “And this ship has women. Lots of women. All for the plucking.”
Gideon and Silas exchanged glances. “What do you mean?” Gideon asked.
“It’s a convict ship from England—the Chastity. It’s carrying women to Australia. There’s fifty or more from what I could gather, and they might just fancy being rescued, if you know what I mean.”
Glancing down toward the crowded harbor, Gideon rubbed his chin. “Convict women, you say? English convict women?”
“I know what you’re thinkin’, Cap’n,” Silas put in, “but it don’t matter if they’re English. Englishwomen will do as well as any others. The men don’t all hate the English as much as you do, you know.”
When Gideon glowered at him, he added hastily, “And I understand why. But these here women … they ain’t like the kind of English you hate.
They’re just poor sods like the rest of our crew, who got handed a raw deal from the first. They’ll suit the men just fine, much better than these uppish island girls who think themselves too good for a bunch of pirates. ”
“But we don’t have much time,” Barnaby said, wisely staying out of the discussion about the English. “The Chastity sets sail in the morning. She only put in here tonight for provisions.”
Ignoring Barnaby, Gideon focused on his normally grumpy cook, who had no personal stake in the scheme. Silas disliked women and had sworn never to take up with one. “Do you really think this will satisfy the men?”
“Aye, I do.” Silas said.
Barnaby straightened his cravat with a knowing look. “It’ll certainly satisfy me.”
Gideon hesitated. But he had no choice. This was the best opportunity to come along in the past few months. And a convict ship would be easy to take at sea. Convict ships were never well-armed.
“All right.” When his two closest friends looked relieved, he went on.
“Barnaby, find out all you can about the ship—what guns it carries, its dimensions … anything we need to know to take it. And for God’s sake, try to be subtle.
Luckily, we’re moored in another harbor, but do what you must to keep the Chastity’s crewmen from hearing that a pirate ship’s in port.
Keep them drunk, even if you have to pay for their drinks the whole night. We don’t want to spook the prey.”
As Barnaby hurried back toward the docks, he turned to Silas. “Round up the crew. Tell them we sail at first light, and I want them on board tonight.” When Silas bobbed his head and started off down the path, Gideon called out, “And make sure they know why, so they don’t curse you for it.”
After they were gone, he gazed down at the harbor to where a ship with a demurely draped female figurehead squatted in the water. The Chastity. It had to be. Though he saw no sign of the women, he imagined they were kept in chains below when they were in port.
The Chastity’s crew was scrambling about, obviously eager to finish furling her sails before they went in to Praia to drink and gamble and whore. Good. With any luck, they’d play right into Barnaby’s hands.
He assessed the ship as best he could from the distance. Square-rigged, three-masted … and obviously sitting heavy in the water. He didn’t see many guns from here, and he counted twenty-odd crewmen, far less than the sixty-three men in his company. He couldn’t ask for an easier prize.
He grinned. You’re a beauty, my dear, and carrying a very valuable cargo. It’ll be like plucking grapes off a tree.
He could hardly wait for the morrow.
Petey climbed out on the royal yard to furl the sky sail as he tried to puzzle out Miss Willis.
Two weeks had passed since their conversation, and she still insisted he look after the women every night.
She’d even convinced the captain to put him on duty there permanently.
He’d hoped he could stop once the men realized he meant business, but Miss Willis didn’t trust nobody, that one.
Wiping sweat from his brow, Petey threaded the line through the block and inched back along the royal yard.
His lordship had warned him the miss would be troublesome, but she’d held to her part of their bargain.
There’d been no more confrontations between her and the sailors, thank God.
It almost made up for his sleepless nights watching after the women on the orlop deck.
Actually, it hadn’t been so bad after the first night.
Then, the women had been wary of him, and the children had stared through the bars, all goggle-eyed to see a sailor hook his hammock up betwixt the cells.
Sailor after sailor had stuck his head in at the hatch, though the captain had commanded them to stay above decks unless they had business below.
Once they’d understood that Petey intended to make them follow captain’s orders, they’d stopped trying.
After that night, the women had suffered his presence in silence.
Some had even ventured to thank him. Indeed, there was one little lass, a sweet young thing named Ann, who’d offered him some of her supper.
Considering that the women made better use of their rations than Cook did, he’d been happy to take a bit.
Of course, the crew resented his interference, but he didn’t care. The earl was paying him three times his pay as a sailor. For that sum he’d fight the lot of them.
Thankfully, he’d only had to trounce one man, and the man had been drunk.
Though the others had tried to make his life a misery, what they thought would be misery to him wasn’t.
The first mate sent him up to the royal yard often, thinking to punish him.
It made sense because of Petey’s small frame, but furling the skysail wasn’t a happy task for most sailors, seeing as how it was so dangerous.
What the first mate didn’t know was Petey liked being up in the rigging, where he could feel the salt wind dust his ears and see the grand ocean spilling out on a fair day like a fortune in sparkling diamonds.
Now that they’d left the cold drear of England behind, he was happy to sweat beneath the tropical sun.
Besides, he’d rather do dangerous tasks than dirty ones, like tarring the lines.