weapon from the dying man, but he could not. Marlowe drove his sword right through the pirate’s face, just below his left eye, and pulled it free as the pirate fell, still screaming, now in rage and pain, into the shallow water.
He pushed the pirate’s victim aside-if he was not dead, then he soon would be-and met a blade coming down on him, turned it aside, and thrust. He looked around. He was all but alone, save for King James, slashing and hacking by his side.
The black man’s face was set in an expression of utter fury, and he screamed out words that Marlowe could not understand. His teeth flashing and his skin glowing under a sheen of sweat as he worked his blade back and forth, cutting, stabbing, parrying, striking down all comers.
But they were surrounded by the pirates, and his own men were once again inching back into the surf.
“To me!” he shouted, but he did not think they heard him over the chilling shrieks of the pirates, and even if they did he did not think they would have obeyed. Two days of drill could not give those men the mettle to stand and fight skilled and desperate killers.
He slapped James on the shoulder to make certain he noticed, then took a step back, and then another. To his right Rakestraw was fully engaged, but on seeing his new captain step back the lieutenant did likewise.
They were outnumbered and nearly surrounded, and no doubt soon would die. He slashed right to parry a cutlass, but not fast enough. The blade cut through his sleeve and rent his flesh. He felt the warm blood running down his arm and knew from past experience that he would not feel the pain until later, if he lived that long. How had he let himself be trapped thus, with no means of escape?
He had not. Of course he had not. In the very instant he remembered, he was greeted with a volley of gunfire, the sweetest sound he ever heard. It came from behind the wall of pirates, flashing in the night and lighting them up from behind.
In the few seconds of light from the muzzle flashes he saw bloody, hideous faces, cutlasses dripping gore, bodies floating in the surf, and ten of the pirates fell, dropped by the careful aim of Bickerstaff’s men.
Bickerstaff. Marlowe had forgotten, completely forgotten about him, though all along he was the only hope they really
had of victory. He had made it across the island, had come up behind the enemy. Just in time.
The pirates half turned, not willing to show their backs to Marlowe’s men but frightened by this attack from behind. As well they might be.
Bickerstaff’s small band fired again, pistols this time, then flung themselves at the startled brigands, hacking with their cutlasses, Bickerstaff himself at their head. It was a horrible sight, horrible at least for the pirates who fell under their blades.
“To me!” Marlowe shouted to the men at his back, some of whom were already waist deep in the water, and with a cry they charged as well.
And that was too much for the pirates. With many a curse and a damning of the victors’ black souls, they flung their weapons in the water and threw their hands over their head. Marlowe had seen it before, the moment when a halter around the neck sometime in the future became a better option than the certainty of a sword thrust in the next few seconds.
They stood there for a moment, King’s men and pirates, listening to the moans and screams of the wounded, the heavy breathing of frightened and exhausted men, the lap of water around their ankles.
Marlowe looked up at Bickerstaff, standing on the other side of the gang of prisoners. He looked as calm as he ever did. Beside him, breathing hard, the point of his sword resting in the sand, was Lieutenant Middleton. The light from the distant fire illuminated half of his face and glinted off of the blood on his sword blade.
“Bickerstaff,” he said at last, “how very glad I am to see you.”
Chapter 11
“SILENCE! SILENCE!” LeRois roared, and one by one the pirate horde, frenzied, drunk, crazed with wanton debauchery and the madness of tearing apart a captive ship, fell quiet.
“Silence! Sons of bitches!” LeRois roared again, and the last of the pirates was quiet and all that LeRois could hear was the groaning of the merchantman’s captain, lying on the deck by his feet, rocking side to side in agony.
“Silence,
And then someone started screaming, a long, drawn-out shriek like some damned soul cast down. Made the hair on the back of LeRois’s neck stand up. “Who is screaming, son of bitch!? Who is that, I will kill them…” He looked around at the Vengeances standing on the deck. Their faces told him it was no one, the screaming was in his head, and even as he realized it, the sound died away.
He cocked his ear to the north. They were a league south of Cape Charles, having just that afternoon arrived at the wide mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. And no sooner had they raised the Capes than the small merchantman, which they were at that moment plundering, had skirted the dangerous Middle Ground Shoal and sailed right into their arms.
For the first time in ten hours the pirates were silent, straining to hear whatever it was that LeRois was listening to. The only sound was the water slapping the hulls of the two ships, the slatting of sails and rigging and the occasional cracking as the two vessels, bound together by grappling hooks, rolled against each other.
Then LeRois heard it, just the faintest hint of sound carried on the offshore breeze.
Gunfire. Small arms going off in volleys.
He frowned and concentrated on the sound. Yes, it was small arms. The pirate’s hearing had always been extraordinary, and years of listening for that sound had conditioned him to pick it out even through the most primal din. He was certain that he heard it. But of late he had been hearing more and more things that no one else did.
He turned to William Darnall, who was standing beside him, ear cocked in the same direction. “Sounds like firelocks,” Darnall said, to LeRois’s vast relief. “Lot of ’em.”
“Smith Island,
“I reckon,” Darnall agreed. “That’s where she bears.”
LeRois listened for a moment more and then shrugged. “It is of no matter,” he said, and then, like men who could hold their breath no longer, the pirates resumed their shouting, their cursing, and their raucous destruction.
LeRois kicked the captain once more for good measure and then walked aft, using his sword as a walking stick, gouging it into the deck and jerking it free as he walked. The men of the
The pirates would have their fun in that manner, but they would do no more harm than that. The merchantman had surrendered without a shot, surrendered at the first sight of LeRois’s black flag. By way of reward, the people aboard her would not be tortured and they would not be killed.
The merchantman’s crew had been compelled to break open the ship’s hatches and were swaying out all that was in the hold: tobacco, mostly, but also some fine cloth that had made its way up from the Spanish Main, as well as barrels of wine that would bring a fair price if not consumed by the Vengeances first. Along with that, the pirates would take the spare sails, some coils of rope, and the anchor cable to replace their own rotted one.
There had been gold as well, doubloons that had no doubt come up the coast with the Spanish cloth. Not many, but enough to share out among the men.
The captain, foolishly, had refused at first to reveal where the coin was hidden, but a few thumps with the flat of LeRois’s sword and a length of burning match tied between his fingers had ultimately rendered him quite vocal on the subject.
Even after they had the gold in hand, the pirates kept at the old man, burning the pieces of match down the full length of his fingers. They jeered as their victim, lashed to a ringbolt on the deck, had twisted and screamed and
