A Jester’s Fortune

boots and musket-butt.

'Enter,' Knolles said, sopping up the last gravy on his plate with a crust of fresh-baked bread and motioning for their steward-Sprinkle-to have away his plate, the water-glasses and the tablecloth. With Mr. Howse away, the gun-room had fed more than well this evening, with fewer to share a whole leg of roast pork. Mister Buchanon, Mister Giles and Midshipman Mister Hyde completed the table, looking sated but eager for the sweet biscuit, the last of the Venetian-bought confections and the port.

'Beggin' yer pardon, sir, but th' wind's shiftin',' Cony told them hat-in-hand. 'An' that prize-ship's but 'er best bower out. No kedge'r stream-anchor t'check 'er swingin'. 'Er stern's comin' round towards our bows, an' 'er 'arbour-watch'z drunker'n Davy's Sow, sir. Can't raise a 'hollo' from 'em, Serb or English.'

'Damn sloppy folk, pirates,' Buchanon grumbled. 'Ha! Did a Bora take her, she could just as well swing aground onshore.'

'Very well, Mister Cony, well be up directly,' Lieutenant Knolles sighed, savouring a last sip of wine before rising. 'Belay the port and biscuit, Sprinkle. Might summon a boat-crew to row over, Bosun. Take in on her anchor rode, if her watch is blind-drunk, I s'pose.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Cony replied, backing out and loping easy for the com-panionway ladder to the weather decks.

Once on the quarterdeck, Knolles eyed the captured ship. Sure enough, she was swinging to stream alee of the wind, which had come more Sou'westerly. Jester was anchored fore-and-aft from first bower and kedge, with springs on the cables to heave her round, should some enemy ship loom out of the night from the east; a prudent caution.

'Hasn't dragged, has she, Mister Tucker?' He enquired of the Quartermaster's Mate.

'Don' think so, sir… swingin', though. Looked t'have 'er at middlin' 'stays.' Forty foot o' water, yonder, so she couldn't have let out more'n five-to-one scope-say, a hun'r'd eighty t'two hun'r'd foot o' rode, sir?'

' At'd be cuttin' it damn fine, sir,' Buchanon groused, with a thumb lifted to measure her. 'I think she'll come aboard us… into th' bowsprit do we not look sharp.'

'Right, then!' Knolles snapped. 'Mister Cony, cutter away to the prize-ship! Boat's crew, plus six more hands for muscle on their capstan, should her watch be as drunk as you suspect. Keep ours sober, hear me?'

'Aye, sir!' Cony shouted back, having mustered a boat-crew upon the gangway already, and snagging the first available hands of the duty-watch he could lay hands on.

'Might even have to row a kedge out for 'em, too!' Lieutenant Knolles added, seeing them scramble over the side. 'Idle bastards,' he murmured under his breath.

'Havin' 'emselves a rare ol' time, aren't they, sir?' Buchanon pointed to the leaping flames ashore, the faint shouts, the yells of merrymaking. 'Wonder what 'ey fed th' cap'um an' 'em?'

'Mister Sadler?' Knolles called for the Bosuns Mate. 'Do you pipe 'All Hands.' We may have to fend that old bitch off, should she come close enough. Muster forrud. Spare spars and rig fenders!' 'Aye, sir!'

They went forward along the starboard gangway themselves, as the off-duty crew boiled up on deck, up as far as the cat-head, which poised the second heavy bower horizontally. That three-master now lay aslant the starboard bows, looking uncomfortably close and tall, at a forty-five-degree angle, just as Cony's working-party reached her main-chain platform. And there was still no response from her, no matter how they shouted from the cutter, or Jesters forecastle.

'Drunks'z lords, sir,' Buchanon sighed. 'Dear God!' 'She'll collide?' Knolles quailed, assuming that the Sailing Master had worked out the angles in his head already and was certain the two ships would entangle. And pleading with God why such a thing had to happen on his watch, with the captain away and him in temporary command!

'Her transom-board, sir!' Buchanon gasped, pointing to the ornately carved, gilded nameplate which was flickering with faint light as her stern swung enough to bare it to them. Below her master's windows and stern- walk, above her wardroom's windows, she bore a name: Nostra Signora di Santa Maria Delle Salute, amid wee angels and cherubs.

'By God, Mister Knolles!' Buchanon gasped. ' 'At's a Venetian cathedral's name. Lay ya, sir… 'ere's somethin' queer 'bout 'is!'

'A Venetian ship, sir?' Knolles gawped. 'Damme, they'd dare to take a Venetian?' He cast a wild stare shoreward. The crudely erected huts teemed with movement, the shadows of campfire flames wavered and flagged in the trees, upon the rocks. Crude shouts could be heard and some laughter, now the wind had shifted to fetch sound seaward. There were no answers, though, no…! Knolles cupped his hands and bellowed over to the ship, which now looked immense, her tall poop towering over Jester s bows. 'Ahoy! Cony! Hoy, the ship!'

There came another sound, a most welcome sound from the capstan, as Navy hands breasted to the bars and began to haul taut on the anchor cable, harsh clackings of pawl-by-pawl progress.

'Heavin' 'er shorter, sir!' Cony yelled back, atop the poop and barely sixty feet off by then. 'These pirates, sir… nary a one of'em on 'is feet! Think we'll keep her off, sir!'

Bosun's Mate Sadler and a quarter of the crew were ready with a selection of spars thrust out to hold her off, should Cony fail, with rope mats and hurriedly scavenged heavy-weather royals and t'gallants up from the sail-room to hang like spongy bags of laundry over-side as protection.

'Cony… is… she… Venetian?' Knolles queried.

' Ang on, sir, lemme 'ave a squint!' He dropped from sight, to magically appear in her stern-windows a minute later, then came out on her captain's stern-gallery waving a sheaf of papers. 'Aye, sir, that she be'. Venetian, right-enough! Christ A'mighty, sir!'

'Put her people in irons, Cony! Mister Hyde!' Knolles shouted.

'Here, sir,' Hyde said, right by his coattails; he hadn't needed to shout.

'Gig and launch, sir, at once. Sergeant Bootheby? We're going to board the brig. If they make a fight of it, then slaughter the bastards.' Knolles cast another glance ashore, wondering if sound would carry that far, against the wind. 'Pass the word. Beat to Quarters… no drums, no noise. Mister Crewe?'

'Aye, sir,' the Master Gunner barked from the darkness.

'Man the starboard battery, best you're able, 'til we've secured the brig. I'm mustering a landing-party, so you'll be short-handed.'

'We'll cope, sir, never ya fear!' Crewe assured him.

Though it would never do for a gentleman, a Sea Officer, to trot when he could stroll or amble proudly, Lieutenant Knolles tore aft, desiring a telescope that instant. He ripped one of the night-glasses from a rack by the binnacle and extended it, trying to focus it, trying to interpret its up-side-down-backwards image. Pirates all 'round the central fires; sway-ing-drunk, or firelit-swaying? Only a cable to shore, perhaps no more than a hundred yards beyond that to the huts, but… naked bodies… naked women, by God. Tits, by God! he gasped; he was sure he saw tits! And held against their will, he could barely make out; captain'd not hold with force. He couldn't see faces or discover identities that far off, had no way to discern uniforms, either. But there was something olid and evil going on ashore, he was dead certain of it, like some pagan Hell, something satanic and heathen done beneath blood-soaked oaks, like tales of witches' covens.

'Women and… children?' he softly exclaimed. 'My oath!' How could he employ the guns, if women and children were in the line of fire? he shuddered. And how could he save his captain?

'Ninety-five guineas, you pus-gut,' Lewrie despaired, putting a brave face on it, though, as Mlavic smirked at him, blowing a premonitory kiss towards Mrs. Connor. He was coming close to his limit; slow as he'd drawn it out, he couldn't continue this farce much longer. Mlavic looked tired of the game, too. In the beginning, he'd played up right-mocking, taking pleasure from his crew's reactions, and the hopes and fears that played teeter-totter on Mrs. Connor's countenance. Lewrie was beginning to run low on insults, too.

'Hun'red!' Mlavic roared, mopping his face with a rough hand. 'Hun'red guinea!' He leered at her, thrust his hips and grimaced.

'And ten,' Lewrie retorted. 'One hundred and ten, you low-bred Barbary ape!'

'Hun'red fifty!' Mlavic bristled, finally getting tired of Lewrie s insults. A few more, Lewrie speculated, and Mlavic would cry off the game, stick his butcher-knife in his ribs, take the woman, and declare himself the winner.