She was so near exhaustion that it was hard to raise her free hand, obey his order.
There was no light showing behind the windows of the cabin where matting was tied down. But as Persis’ fist arose weakly and fell again on the door there came a muttering and finally someone who must have been standing very close to the door, or crept there during her assault, said:
“Who be you?”
“Mason—” There was a muffled exclamation from within. Persis heard a bar thud away from its hoops. Now the door opened inward—though they still looked into the dark.
“Cap’n! It be you?”
“What is left of me.” Again Crewe’s voice strengthened as it had when he had asked for help from Askra at the landing. “Let me in, man, and be quick about it!”
“Truly will, Cap’n.”
As they tottered forward stronger arms caught Crewe, drew him along. Persis freed from his weight had to catch at the side of that doorway or she might have slipped to the ground. Then a hold was on her also and she was pulled within, to have the door slammed, and hear, through the dark, the bar thud back into place once more.
“Cap’n—what’s been happenin’?”
“Grillon’s ashore, with I don’t know how many of his bully boys. Can you scout out our men—those at the hotel? He thinks I’m dead—or maybe just hopes it.”
“Cap’n—! Here you, Carrie—light up the dish light— T’ain’t much, Cap’n, but it’s better than a lantern.”
There was a tiny flicker in the dark, the sound of a tinderbox, and then indeed a light so faint it reached hardly beyond the border of the crude bowl in which a twist of fiber was awash with oil from which came a very strong smell of fish. So strong Persis’ stomach near heaved.
She was sitting on a stool where she had been pushed, her battered and bleeding hands lying limply on her knees, every bruise she had met with that night adding to the ache of her body.
“Carrie,” she heard Crewe’s voice now as if it had come from a much farther distance. Her head was so light that when she tried to look at anything it spun in a slow but dizzy whirl. “Carrie, take care of the lady.”
A shape moved forward between her and that tiny wisp of light and she found herself once more on her feet, being guided over to the far side of the hut and there settled on a pallet while a woman’s voice murmured in the thick dialect of the islanders which Persis could not understand. She closed her eyes to fight that terrible giddiness and lapsed into a darkness more complete than that of the night outside.
If dreams pursued her in that dark, none of them lingered when she again roused. For several moments as she looked about her, she was dully amazed. This was not her bed—her room—It was as if she had awakened into another world.
The walls about her were rough stone fitted together as if they had been quarried of broken pieces. The spaces for two windows had irregular edging, just stones left out from the wall. Over her head was a framework of palm fronds based on timbers. There were two stools, a table rough-made but scrubbed clean. And, on the far wall, a rack in which rested two of those heavy swordlike knives the islanders used to cut away fast-growing underbrush. The mats which had closed both windows at night were now pushed out and held so by sticks braced against the wall.
This was—this was the cabin to which they had won their way last night. But she was alone in it. Persis struggled to sit up, the rags of her chemise, her stays, and her torn drawers had been taken from her. She was glad to find she was decently covered by a kind of loose robe which had a neck opening wide enough to slip over her head. Her hands hurt when she tried to move her fingers and she saw that they had been liberally smeared with a thick substance which had dried and which carried a pungent odor, some sort of herbal remedy she decided.
The giddiness, which had struck at her in the last moments of consciousness she could remember, was still enough to make her lean quickly back against the wall. But she was listening intently. There came the usual sounds of birds and insects from outside. And in addition, from not too far away, the sound of several voices rising and falling in the island dialect which Lydia had informed her very few not of native blood could hope to understand. A mixture it was of Indian, African, and a few Spanish words—reflecting those who had in turn subdued the Key and held it for a space.
Lydia! And Grillon! And Crewe!
All Persis’ anxieties flooded back and she got to her knees on the pallet. It was then her eyes fell on what must have been carefully laid beside her head as she slept—the false fan with its hidden steel. This time she had no compunction in picking it up, even though the curling of her fingers around the hilt made her wince with pain. It had served them well last night. There was no place in this robe she could hide it, but keep it with her she would!
The door was unbarred, she saw now, partially ajar: And as a figure appeared in that gap, Persis held tightly to the dagger hilt. But the dark-faced woman who entered was one she remembered vaguely having seen in the washhouse conventionally employed in sudsing clothes. She wore a loose blouse of cotton which must have once been sun-bright yellow but was now faded in uneven streaks. And her skirt was full, though above ankle-length, patterned with a border of colored thread in a strange design.
She carried a bowl in both hands, steam arising from it. Seeing Persis awake she smiled widely, displaying two gaps in her front teeth. Her frizzled hair was caught up under a bright red kerchief, save for a fringe across her forehead. And certainly there was nothing more alarming about her than there had been in Mam Rose or Sukie, though she was clearly not a house-servant.
“Missie feel good?” She set the bowl down on the table, produced from a box a carved wooden spoon she dropped into it and then brought it to Persis. “Eat— eat—good—give strength—” She hesitated between words as if she needed to translate from her own speech into one Persis could understand.
“Captain Leverett—where is he?” Persis accepted the bowl, laying the fan dagger down beside her. She was instantly aware that the woman’s eyes had flickered quickly to it and away again as if it were something she refused to acknowledge had any existence in her world.
“Th’ Cap’n-he be doin’ what needful-” The woman watched Persis spoon up the stew. To the girl’s taste it was overseasoned, too peppery, but once she had started to eat she discovered that she was hungry, hungry enough to even relish this. And when she had emptied the bowl her turbaned hostess produced some fruit, the coolness of which relieved her mouth and throat.
She wondered what was “needful” for Captain Leverett. Surely to take care of his shoulder which might well have been reinjured during their activities of the night. But that she had any influence over him, or even over this woman, she doubted.
That she had not been returned to the house both puzzled and alarmed her. Now that she tried to remember those scraps of conversation she had overheard before Ralph Grillon left Crewe to what he believed a certain death, she wondered if the Bahamian had not after all ever planned to leave Lost Lady, but rather, with Lydia very much under his control, had seen a good chance to take over the whole operation. He could well have landed men (just as Crewe kept insisting through the night) and perhaps more than just Mrs. Pryor, Molly, and Shubal had had doctored food or drink served them, keeping them helpless while Grillon had moved in.
Molly! If the maid had recovered and discovered her own absence Persis imagined what an outburst there had been. Were the three she had seen sleeping in the house now under guard? And what of the remainder of the Arrow’s men, and those from the Dutch ship—as well as Dr. Veering and the islanders?
How much could Crewe depend upon the latter? They were a mixture of races whose ancestors had seen many masters here and a new one might philosophically be accepted. While perhaps the rescued seafarers at the hotel might be persuaded that this was no fight of theirs, only a personal quarrel between two wreckers.
But where was Crewe—and what could he be doing?
The woman took away the second bowl she had offered when Persis signaled that she could eat no more. However, just as she placed it on the table, she turned sharply toward the doorway. And her attitude was such that Persis put out her hand once more to close on the fan dagger.