“They will.”
“What if they don’t understand English?” he persisted.
Mutch said, “The riverboat is an American invention. They will speak English.”
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Little John asked, “What did you tell them, Sir Robin?” “I’m sure you’d approve—the truth.” He inclined his large head. “Ah, but which one?” Robin smiled. “Mine.”
The riverboat slowed, but did not stop. It almost seemed as if some debate raged within. Five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. Finally it began to turn, the huge rear paddlewheel coming to a halt. It began to drift slowly down-River with the current, away from them.
“What does that mean?” Friar Tuck demanded.
“It means they don’t want to meet us in the dark,” Little John said. “They will float with the current until dawn, then paddle back up to see us.”
“My thought exactly,” Robin said. He sat, crossing his legs. “We wait.”
The riverboat reappeared an hour after dawn, chugging faintly, smoke from its stack leaving twin gray smears in the air. Robin stood and began to wave his bow. His men did the same.
The riverboat slowed, its paddles turning just enough to keep abreast of Robin and his men. Sailors dressed in black and white swarmed across the deck. They broke out a small boat, lowered it, and two men began to row briskly toward the cliffs. Two more men aboard, armed with short curved swords, kept a vigilant watch on Robin and his men.
Robin began to make his way down to the rocky shore. The others followed. He arrived just as the boat reached the shallows and waded out to help pull them to shore.
“Bonjour,” one of the men with swords said. “Je m’appelle Claude de Ves. Je suls—”
Robin shook his head, interrupting. “I don’t speak French. Do you speak English?”
“A little,” he said in a heavy accent. “I am Claude de Ves of the—how you say?—ah, the riverboat Belle Dame.”
“Who is your captain?” Robin asked.
“Monsieur Jules Verne.”
“The author?”
“Out.”
The name meant nothing to Little John and most of the others, Robin saw. Quickly he explained about the famous French technologist and writer, who had foreseen the invention of everything from the submarine to atomic power.
“This is a man,” Little John vowed, “that I would truly like to meet.”
“Yes, he is a great man,” Claude said. “Your letter— alors, I do not know the word—but the captain, he wishes to meet with you.”
“Excellent!” Robin said. “It should not take more than four or five trips to get us all over—”
“You are the leader?” Claude asked.
“Yes.”
“Monsieur Verne wishes only you to visit.”
Robin looked at Little John. “What do you think?”
“If this Verne is as great a man as you say, you will have nothing to fear.”
“My thought exactly.” Robin looked at Claude de Ves. “Very well, your condition is acceptable.” He clambered into the rowboat and sat. His men pushed them out into deeper water, and Verne’s men maneuvered them around and began to row toward the riverboat with powerful strokes.
Once Robin glanced back and saw Little John standing
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there, staring back at him with an unreadable expression. Robin waved, and shouted, “I’ll be back soon.”
The riverboat itself was a technological marvel, but up close Robin began to notice subtle details that marked it as the product of a more primitive technology than he had at first suspected. The glass in the windows was cloudy and full of bubbles. The brass had been beaten to shape the rails; mallet marks were clearly visible. As he climbed onto the lower deck, he noted the square-headed nails in the ladder. The riverboat had been built by hand, he was sure, and represented the product of a fantastic amount of sheer physical labor.
“Monsieur Verne is in his cabin,” Claude said. He led Robin to a hatch, then rapped sharply on its frame.
A feeble voice answered.
Claude undogged the hatch and stood back so Robin could enter first. Robin ducked through.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom inside. When he could see, he discovered a pale man with short, wiry black hair propped up in bed. There was a sweet smell in the air, almost like meat left in the sun too long. Infection, Robin thought.
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