Outlander 03 - Voyager

“I expect that would be awkward for the Governor,” I said dryly. “Much as he might enjoy it, personally.”

“I shouldna think he would, Sassenach.” His dryness matched my own. “Is my coat within reach?”

“Yes.” I found the garment folded on the ground near me, and handed it to him. “Are you cold?”

“No.” He leaned back, the coat laid across his knees. “It’s only that I wanted to feel the bairns all close to me while I sleep.” He smiled at me, folded his hands gently atop the coat and its pictures, and closed his eyes again. “Good night, Sassenach.”

63

OUT OF THE DEPTHS

In the morning, buoyed by rest and a breakfast of biscuit and plantain, we pressed on toward the shore in good heart—even Ian, who ceased to limp ostentatiously after the first quarter-mile. As we came down the defile that led onto the beach, though, a remarkable sight met our eyes.

“Jesus God, it’s them!” Ian blurted. “The pirates!” He turned, ready to flee back into the hills, but Jamie grasped him by the arm.

“Not pirates,” he said. “It’s the slaves. Look!”

Unskilled in the seamanship of large vessels, the escaped slaves of the Yallahs River plantations had evidently made a slow and blundering passage toward Hispaniola, and having somehow arrived at that island, had promptly run the ship aground. The Bruja lay canted on her side in the shallows, her keel sunk deep in the sandy mud. A very agitated group of slaves surrounded her, some rushing up and down the beach shouting, others dashing off toward the refuge of the jungle, a few remaining to help the last of their number off the beached hulk.

A quick glance out to sea showed the cause of their agitation. A patch of white showed on the horizon, growing in size even as we watched.

“A man-of-war,” Lawrence said, sounding interested.

Jamie said something under his breath in Gaelic, and Ian glanced at him, shocked.

“Out of here,” Jamie said tersely. He pulled Ian about and gave him a shove up the defile, then grabbed my hand.

“Wait!” said Lawrence, shading his eyes. “There’s another ship coming. A little one.”

The Governor of Jamaica’s private pinnace, to be exact, leaning at a perilous angle as she shot round the curve of the bay, her canvas bellied by the wind on her quarter.

Jamie stood for a split second, weighing the possibilities, then grabbed my hand again.

“Let’s go!” he said.

By the time we reached the edge of the beach, the pinnace’s small boat was plowing through the shallows, Raeburn and MacLeod pulling hard at the oars. I was wheezing and gulping air, my knees rubbery from the run. Jamie snatched me up bodily into his arms and ran into the surf, followed by Lawrence and Ian, gasping like whales.

I saw Gordon, a hundred yards out in the pinnace’s bow, aim a gun at the shore, and knew we were followed. The musket discharged with a puff of smoke, and Meldrum, behind him, promptly raised his own weapon and fired. Taking it in turns, the two of them covered our splashing advance, until friendly hands could pull us over the side and raise the boat.

“Come about!” Innes, manning the wheel, barked the order, and the boom swung across, the sails filling at once. Jamie hauled me to my feet and deposited me on a bench, then flung himself down beside me, panting.

“Holy God,” he wheezed. “Did I no—tell ye to—stay away—Duncan?”

“Save your breath, Mac Dubh,” Innes said, a wide grin spreading under his mustache. “Ye havena enough to be wasting it.” He shouted something to MacLeod, who nodded and did something to the lines. The pinnace heeled over, changed her course, and came about, headed straight out of the tiny cove—and straight toward the man-of- war, now close enough for me to see the fat-lipped porpoise grinning beneath its bowsprit.

MacLeod bellowed something in Gaelic, accompanied by a gesture that left the meaning of what he had said in no doubt. To a triumphant yodel from Innes, we shot past the Porpoise, directly under her bow and close enough to see surprised-looking heads poking out from the rail above.

I looked back as we left the cove, to see the Porpoise still heading in, massive under her three great masts. The pinnace could never outrace her on the open sea, but in close quarters, the little sloop was light and maneuverable as a feather by comparison to the leviathan man-of-war.

“It’s the slave ship they’ll be after,” Meldrum said, turning to look alongside me. “We saw the man-o’-war pick her up, three miles off the island. We thought whilst they were otherwise occupied, we might as well nip in and pick ye all off the beach.”

“Good enough,” Jamie said with a smile. His chest was still heaving, but he had recovered his breath. “I hope the Porpoise will be sufficiently occupied for the time being.”

A warning shout from Raeburn indicated that this was not to be, however. Looking back, I could see the gleam of brass on the Porpoise’s deck as the pair of long guns called stern chasers were uncovered and began their process of aiming.

Now it was us at gunpoint, and I found the sensation very objectionable. Still, we were moving, and fast, at that. Innes put the wheel hard over, then hard again, tacking a zigzag path past the headland.

The stern chasers boomed together. There was a splash off the port bow, twenty yards away, but a good deal too close for comfort, given the fact that a twenty-four pound ball through the floor of the pinnace would sink us like a rock.

Innes cursed and hunched his shoulders over the wheel, his missing arm giving him an odd, lopsided appearance. Our course became still more erratic, and the next three tries came nowhere near. Then came a louder