despite her skirts. Aft we went to the cabin, and all was dark and quiet. Over
the stern lights I hung a heavy blanket from the bed, and then cautiously, with
flint and steel, a light.
All was in turmoil. What I looked for was a pistol, and finding one, I charged
it. What Abigail looked for was clothing, and she found it.
“I want to change,” she said, looking at me.
“Change then,” I replied, “but quickly.” Stepping out I closed the door behind
me, then went into the smaller mate’s quarters and felt about for the hasp of
the gunlocker. It was intact.
Apparently Bardle had been too intent on pursuit of Tempany to loot the Tiger,
or believed it safely within his hands, with no need for hurry.
Breaking the hasp with an axe from a nearby bulkhead, I took out a musket,
another pistol, and charged both. On the after rail was mounted a swivel-gun,
and I charged it also. It could cover a large part of the beach from the high
side of the vessel. The Tiger was canted slightly to the starboard side, and the
swivel-gun, mounted on the port rail, had an excellent field of fire.
From the galley I brought food to the cabin, knocked, and was admitted. Abigail
looked lovely in a simple gray dress with white cuffs and collar. She had made
up a small bundle of whatever she might need, and stood ready for leaving.
There was ham, ship’s bread, some onions and a bit of dried fruit from the
master’s mess. Taking a careful look around from the ship’s deck, I then joined
Abigail in the cabin where we sat to table and ate. We were hungry, and it
pleased me mightily to see the hungry way in which Abigail sank her dainty teeth
into a bit of ham I’d sliced for her.
I pulled a draught of ale for each, and with mine in one hand and a chunk of ham
in the other, I returned to the deck. The beach was empty so far as I could see,
but it was growing quite dark. Going below once more, I sat down and finished
the best meal I’d had in days, and then began to pack a sack with food to be
taken if time and circumstance allowed.
“We are going now?” she asked, watching me pack the sack.
There was reluctance in her tone, and I understood why.
“Not tonight,” I said, “unless we must. Do you sleep now, in a good bunk.
Tomorrow we will think of going.”
“And you?”
“I’ll watch,” I said. “Be off with you now.”
She left, and the door closed gently behind her. I peered out into the darkness
from near the swivel-gun. I knew how tired she must be, for I was also tired.
I leaned on the rail and my muscles cried out for me to lie down … for a
minute only.
There was no sound but the rustle of surf on the sand. Search the woods as I
might, I could see no gleam of fire, nor could I hear any sound. It was very
still.
Chapter 16
My eyes closed. Almost at once they were open and I felt fear go through me like
a shaft of steel, cold and bitter.
To sleep might be to die. More than that, I would leave her whom … I hesitated
at what I suddenly thought … whom I loved.
There … the thought was complete. But was it so? Did I love Abigail Tempany?
And if so, why? A lovely girl, gentle enough yet with courage and more strength
than one would suspect. A lady, but a bright one—she was intelligent, with a
good measure of common sense, and the two are not always one.
Now I was awake. For the moment at least my weariness disappeared in
contemplation of this new thought. I was in love. Yet why should Abigail
Tempany, of all people, love me?
Not that she did, of course. There was no reason for it. Why should anybody love
me? I was a somewhat ordinary man with ordinary impulses, and some measure of
ambition, but I had little, I was less.
Yet I would be something … that I knew.
I loved a lady, a fair lady. I wished she were mine in one breath and was glad
she was not in a second, for where could I take such a lady? To a cottage in the
fens? Abigail? Even if she would consider it, I would not. Would I have her
offer slop to pigs and bake eels?
I loved a lady, and a lady must live as a lady deserves.
Well, what was it Jublain had said? I had a sword. Indeed I had, and with a
sword a man might win a kingdom, might hold that kingdom against all who
came—and might also lose his head for trying.
Suddenly something bumped the hull … bumped again. I lifted the sword. I heard
the slap of bare feet on the deck, then more feet.
A voice spoke. “There be naught aboard, Cap’n. She’s still as death she is, and
nobody’s taken the hatches off her. What was there is still there.”
“Get off that ladder!” It was Nick Bardle’s voice. “I am coming aboard.”
There was a solid dark cluster of them where the rope ladder hung, and I turned
the swivel on them with great good cheer.
“Here’s a bit of something for yourself, Cap’n!” I shouted, and fired the
swivel.
She belched a solid blast of flame and I heard the thud of the shot as it
struck, and a scream. Then I upped with a pistol and let go at a shadow that
separated itself from the others, and then another blast from my second pistol
and suddenly a third, and this from the cabin door.
Abigail, bless her!
Then with a wild yell from my throat, I went along the deck and at them. I knew
not how many they were, nor they how many were here. My swinging blade cut this
way and that, a scream, a cry, a clang of metal on metal, and then they were all
about me and I was fighting for my life.
Suddenly from below there was a rush of feet, and another cry, and somebody
yelled out, “Who’s that? Who is that, damn them to hell?”
Somebody was also attacking from below, so I was not alone. Not yet, at least. I
parried a blade, thrust, stepped back and with a toe kicked a block in the way
of my opponent who spilled over it to hands and knees. If he came up from that—I
flicked my blade sidewise and down in a quick gesture—up from that he’d have to
fasten his head on again.
Somebody leaped the rail to escape, and another gun flamed beside me. There was
Abigail, hair wild about her shoulders in that fleeting glimpse, but aiming with
another pistol, and God knows where she found them or how she had charged them.
A man loomed at the head of the ladder and my thrust took him at the base of the
throat and lifted. If he lived, that one, he’d truly have a cleft chin.
There was another sound of running feet, a blast or two from below, and then a
jumble of voices among which I detected Brian Tempany’s.
“Welcome aboard, Cap’n,” I said cheerfully, “but do you step carefully. I think
they’ve left some’at behind.”
“Is it you, Sackett?”
“Aye, and pleased to see you, and at my side is a lady who shoots uncommon
well.”
She was there, close against my elbow, her head just a jot above my shoulder.
“And how did you come to be awake?”
“I never slept,” she said, “for I could see you were heavy with sleep, and was
hopeful you’d sleep, for well you should have.”
“And I stayed awake for you,” I said.
Tempany came over the rail. Dim his face was, in the vague light of a dawn not
far away. “I thought you two were dead,” he spoke quietly, “I thought Bardle had
killed you.”
Jublain was at my elbow. “Are you well, then? You’ve not taken a cutting?”
“Well, aye,” I said, “but you shall find some about who are not.”
“Four dead on the deck,” Corvino said with satisfaction, “and one who fell
overside. And there were three done in by us when we closed, and before they
broke. I’ve a feeling there’s a few who will carry scars, if they live.”
“Sakim?”
“I am here, my friend. A little used, but here.”
“Come,” Tempany said, “we’ll go below. Courtney, you and Fitzpatrick stay on
deck. I’ll send a tot of rum for each. The rest of you below for what is coming
to you.
“Sackett,” he turned to me, “come to the cabin. We’ve much to talk about.”
I sheathed my sword, and turned, staggering a little from the onset of weariness