Then I remembered what Geilie had said.
“It’s a parson, a minister of some kind,” I said. “She said she was expecting him.”
“It’s Archie Campbell, is who it is,” Jamie said, with some grimness. “What the devil—or perhaps I shouldna use that particular expression, wi’ respect to Mistress Duncan.”
“Perhaps he’s come to exorcise her,” I suggested, with a nervous laugh.
“He’s his work cut out for him, if so.” The angular figure disappeared into the trees, but it was several minutes before Jamie deemed him safely past us.
“What do you plan to do about Ian?” I asked, once we had made our way back to the path.
“I’ll need help,” he answered briskly. “I mean to come up the river with Innes and MacLeod and the rest. There’s a landing there, no great distance from the refinery. We’ll leave the boat there, go ashore and deal wi’ Hercules—and Atlas, too, if he’s a mind to be troublesome—break open the cellar, snatch Ian, and make off again. The dark o’ the moon’s in two days—I wish it could be sooner, but it will likely take that long to get a suitable boat and what arms we’ll need.”
“Using what for money?” I inquired bluntly. The expenditure for new clothes and shoes had taken a substantial portion of Jamie’s share of profit from the bat guano. What was left would feed us for several weeks, and possibly be sufficient to rent a boat for a day or two, but it wouldn’t stretch to buying large quantities of weapons.
Neither pistols nor swords were manufactured on the island; all weapons were imported from Europe and were in consequence expensive. Jamie himself had Captain Raines’s two pistols; the Scots had nothing but their fish knives and the odd cutlass—insufficient for an armed raid.
He grimaced slightly, then glanced at me sidelong.
“I must ask John for help,” he said simply. “Must I not?”
I rode silently for a moment, then nodded in acquiescence.
“I suppose you’ll have to.” I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t a question of my liking; it was Ian’s life. “One thing, though, Jamie—”
“Aye, I know,” he said, resigned. “Ye mean to come with me, no?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “After all, what if Ian’s hurt, or sick, or—”
“Aye, ye can come!” he said, rather testily. “Only do me the one wee favor, Sassenach. Try verra hard not to be killed or cut to pieces, aye? It’s hard on a man’s sensibilities.”
“I’ll try,” I said, circumspectly. And nudging my horse closer to his, rode side by side down toward Kingston, through the dripping trees.
61
THE CROCODILE’S FIRE
There was a surprising amount of traffic on the river at night. Lawrence Stern, who had insisted on accompanying the expedition, told me that most of the plantations up in the hills used the river as their main linkage with Kingston and the harbor; roads were either atrocious or nonexistent, swallowed by lush growth with each new rainy season.
I had expected the river to be deserted, but we passed two small craft and a barge headed downstream as we tacked laboriously up the broad waterway, under sail. The barge, an immense dark shape stacked high with casks and bales, passed us like a black iceberg, huge, humped, and threatening. The low voices of the slaves poling it carried across the water, talking softly in a foreign tongue.
“It was kind of ye to come, Lawrence,” Jamie said. We had a small, single-masted open boat, which barely held Jamie, myself, the six Scottish smugglers, and Stern. Despite the crowded quarters, I too was grateful for Stern’s company; he had a stolid, phlegmatic quality about him that was very comforting under the circumstances.
“Well, I confess to some curiosity,” Stern said, flapping the front of his shirt to cool his sweating body. In the dark, all I could see of him was a moving blotch of white. “I have met the lady before, you see.”
“Mrs. Abernathy?” I paused, then asked delicately, “Er…what did you think of her?”
“Oh…she was a very pleasant lady; most…gracious.”
Dark as it was, I couldn’t see his face, but his voice held an odd note, half-pleased, half-embarrassed, that told me he had found the widow Abernathy quite attractive indeed. From which I concluded that Geilie had wanted something from the naturalist; I had never known her treat a man with any regard, save for her own ends.
“Where did you meet her? At her own house?” According to the attendees at the Governor’s ball, Mrs. Abernathy seldom or never left her plantation.
“Yes, at Rose Hall. I had stopped to ask permission to collect a rare type of beetle—one of the Cucurlionidae— that I had found near a spring on the plantation. She invited me in, and…made me most welcome.” This time there was a definite note of self-satisfaction in his voice. Jamie, handling the tiller next to me, heard it and snorted briefly.
“What did she want of ye?” he asked, no doubt having formed conclusions similar to mine about Geilie’s motives and behavior.
“Oh, she was most gratifyingly interested in the specimens of flora and fauna I had collected on the island; she asked me about the locations and virtues of several different herbs. Ah, and about the other places I had been. She was particularly interested in my stories of Hispaniola.” He sighed, momentarily regretful. “It is difficult to believe that such a lovely woman might engage in such reprehensible behavior as you describe, James.”
“Lovely, aye?” Jamie’s voice was dryly amused. “A bit smitten, were ye, Lawrence?”
Lawrence’s voice echoed Jamie’s smile. “There is a sort of carnivorous fly I have observed, friend James. The male fly, choosing a female to court, takes pains to bring her a bit of meat or other prey, tidily wrapped in a small
