stood fair and boisterous. Dawn the next day would reveal that great flat-topped mountain rising out of the sea. She had no time for elaborate planning. Whatever she did must be direct and swift.
There were half a dozen bottles in her medicine chest whose contents would serve, but no, poison was the most disgusting of deaths to inflict. She had seen a man die of strychnine poison when she was at St. Matthew's.
She would never forget the arching spine as his back muscles convulsed until the man stood on the top of his head and on his heels like a drawn bow.
It must be some other means, there was the big naval colt revolver which Zouga kept in his cabin. He had instructed her in its loading and discharge, or there was the Sharps rifle, but both of those belonged to her brother. She did not want to see him swinging from the gallows on the parade ground below the castle at Cape Town. The more uncomplicated and direct the plan, the greater was its chance of success, she realized, and at the thought she knew just how it must be done.
There was a polite knock on her cabin door, and she started.
Who is it? ' Jackson, Doctor. ' He was the Captain's steward. Dinner is served in the saloon.'
She had not realized how late it had grown.
I will not be dining tonight.' You must keep your strength up, ma'am, Jackson entreated through the closed door. Are you the doctor, then? ' she asked tartly, and he went shuffling off down the companionway.
She had not eaten since breakfast but she was not hungry, her stomach muscles were rigid with tension.
She lay a while on her bunk, gathering her resolve and then she stood up, selected one of her oldest dresses, in a dark heavy wool. It would be the least loss to her wardrobe, and the dark colour would make it less conspicuous in the shadows.
She left her cabin and went quietly up to the maindeck. There was no one but the helmsman on the quarterdeck, his weathered brown face lit faintly by the binnacle lamp.
She moved quietly across to the skylight of the saloon and looked down.
Mungo St. John sat at the head of the table, with a joint of steaming salt beef in front of him. He was carving thin slices of meat, laughing across the board at one of Zouga's sallies. One quick glance was enough. Unless there was a call from the lookout or a need to change sail, Mungo St. John would not move for another half hour at the least.
Robyn went back down the ladder, past her own cabin and down the companionway to the after quarters. She reached Mungo St. John's quarters and tried the door.
Once again it slid open easily, she stepped through and closed it behind her again.
It took her only a few minutes to find the case of pistols in the drawer of the teak desk. She opened it on the desk top and took out one of the beautiful weapons.
The mottled Damascus steel barrels were inlaid with bright gold, a hunting scene with horses and hounds and huntsmen.
Robyn sat down on the edge of the bunk, held the weapon muzzle-up between her knees while she unscrewed the silver powder flask and measured the fine powder into the cup. It was a familiar chore, for Zouga had spent hours in her instruction. She rammed the charge down into the long, elegant barrel under the felt wad, and then selected a perfect sphere of lead from the ball compartment of the case, wrapped that in an oiled patch of felt to give it a close fit in the rifled barrel and then rammed it down on top of the powder charge.
Then she reversed the pistol, pointing it down at the deck while she fitted one of the copper percussion caps over the nipple of the breech, drew back the hammer until it clicked at full cock, and laid it on the bunk beside her. She did the same with the other pistol, and when they were both loaded and cocked, she placed them on the edge of the desk, butts towards her, ready for immediate use.
Then she stood and, in the centre of the cabin, lifted her skirts around her waist and loosened the draw string of her drawers. She let them fall to the deck, and the air was cool on her naked buttocks so that she felt the little goose pimples rise on her skin. She dropped her skirts and picked up the cotton under-garment. Holding it across her chest she tore it half through and threw it across the cabin, then she took the fastenings of her bodice in both hands and ripped them down almost to her waist, the hooks and eyes hung on the torn threads of cotton.
She looked at herself in the polished metal mirror on the bulkhead beside the door. There was a lustre in her green eyes and her cheeks were flushed.
For the first time in her life, she thought her image beautiful, not beautiful, she corrected herself, but proud and wild and strong as an avenger should be. She was glad he would see her like this before he died, and she lifted her hand and rearranged one of the thick tresses of hair that had broken free of its retaining ribbon.
She sat back on the bunk and picked up a loaded pistol in each hand, she aimed first the one and then the other at the brass handle of the door, and then laid them in her lap and settled down to wait.
She had left her watch in her own cabin so she could not tell how long she waited. The voices and laughter from the officers' saloon were completely muffled by the closed door, but every time a plank creaked or some part of the ship's gear clattered, her nerves sprang tight and she lifted the pistols to cover the doorway.
Then suddenly she heard his footsteps, there was no mistaking them for any other man aboard. They reminded her somehow of a caged leopard pacing its bars, quick, light and alert. He was on the deck above her, but the footsteps were so close that it seemed he was in the cabin with her. She looked up at the deck, swinging her head slightly to follow his turns from one side of the quarterdeck to the other.
She knew what he was doing, she had watched him on a dozen other nights. First he would talk quietly with the helmsman, checking the slate on which the ship's course was chalked before going back to inspect the log trailing astern. Then he would light one of his thin black Havana cigars and begin pacing the deck, with his hands clasped in the small of his back as he walked, darting quick glances up at the trim of his sails, studying the stars and the clouds for signs of change in the weather, pausing to feel the scend of the sea and the run of the ship under him before pacing on again.
Suddenly the footsteps stopped and Robyn froze, the moment had come. He had paused to flip the stub of his cigar over the rail and watch it fizzle into darkness as it hit the surface of the sea.
There was still time for her to escape, and she felt her resolve weaken. She half rose. She could still reach her
