Renzi crawled over to a thwart and drew out of his package a small book. 'My friends,' he began, but his voice was hoarse and unnatural, and he had to clear his throat. 'We are at some hazard, I'll grant, but... these words may put you in mind of another place, another time, what we may yet...
''The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds . ..''
'Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas!' Cecilia wept. She moved to Renzi, and hugged his arm while the measured, burnished phrases went on until Renzi could no longer see the text.
Night fell. They lolled back and gazed at the vast starry heavens as they drifted in perfect calm beneath. But bodies were now a mass of suffering from the aches of unyielding hardness everywhere and the sight for them held no beauty.
The night progressed, the moon travelled half the sky and still no wind. Then in the early hours an inconsequential puff from nowhere had the sails slatting busily. Kydd heaved himself up from the bottom of the boat where he had been lying and looked across the ebony black sea, glittering with moonlight. A roughening of texture in the glassy sea away in the distance had his heart hammering. It approached, flaws and ripples in a darting flurry that came nearer and nearer. Kydd held the tiller in a death grip, fearful with anticipation, and suddenly they were enveloped in a brisk breeze that sent the longboat heeling, then in a joyful chuckling of water they were under way again.
Croaking cheers broke out - but the breeze dropped, their speed fell away .. . and then the wind picked up even stronger than before in a glorious thrusting urge. The winds held into the morning; with a steady breeze from the north-east, the heat was under control. Eagerly, the midday ceremony with octant and watch was anticipated with little patience, for Kydd took the utmost pains to ensure his workings were unassailable.
Finally he looked up from the frayed chart. 'I’m grieved t' say it, but I was wrong,' he said, but the staring eyes that looked back at him made him regret his black humour. 'That is, th' current, it wasn't as bad as I thought. In fact...' he paused dramatically and pointed '... there — there you will find St Lucia distant but twenty leagues, and there, that is St Vincent. We pass between them and to Barbados beyond.'
It was incredibly elating to be making plans for landfall within the next day. 'Can we stop at an island for water on the way?' Stanhope said. His voice was croaking with dehydration.
'No,' said Kydd decisively. 'We don't know if the French are still in control — after what we've suffered, I don' want us t' end in a Frog prison.'
Cecilia lifted a barricoe and shook it. 'We don't have much left,' she said. Her voice was husky and low, her skin dry and cracked.
'We don't stop,' Kydd said, concentrating ahead. His own voice had a harsh cast.
For a long time there was nothing said, then Lord Stanhope murmured, 'I could insist . . .'
Kydd gripped the tiller. 'No. Y'r not th' Captain. If y’ needs water then you c'n have my share.'
'That won't be necessary,' Lord Stanhope croaked, 'but thank you, Mr Kydd, that was nobly said.'
'We don't stop.'
'No.'
The passage between the two islands was more than twenty-five miles; at their height-of-eye they would probably not even see them. Kydd concentrated on the boat compass, the card swimming lazily under the lubber's line. He had to be certain of his course for if he steered true Barbados lay just eighty-odd miles beyond in the Atlantic, less than a day away.
