her cabin close, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he went on deck, into the full blast of the storm.
Belowdecks, the storm seemed fearsome, but on the main deck it exceeded all preparation. The wind tore at him like an invisible brute, a thousand strong hands pulling at his arms and legs, wrenching him away from any handhold or support. The rain struck him with such force that at first he cried aloud. He could hardly see in the first few seconds. He made out Enders at the tiller, lashed firmly into his position.
Hunter went over to him, holding to a guideline strung along the deck, finally reaching the shelter of the aft castle. He took an extra line and looped it around himself, leaned closer to Enders, and shouted, “How fare you?”
“No better, no worse,” Enders shouted back. “We hold, and we’ll hold some while longer, but it’s hours. I can feel her start to break.”
“How many hours?”
Enders reply was lost in the mountain of water that surged over them and smashed down on the deck.
It was, Hunter thought, as good an answer as any. No ship could take such a pounding for long, especially not a crippled ship.
…
BACK IN HER CABIN, Lady Sarah Almont surveyed the destruction caused by the storm, and the seamen who had burst in upon her as she had been making her preparations. Carefully, as the boat rocked, she righted her candles on the deck, and lit them one after another, until there were five red candles glowing. Then she scratched a pentagram on the deck, and stepped inside it.
She was very afraid. When the Frenchwoman, Madame de Rochambeau had shown her the latest in the fads of the Court of Louis XIV, she had been amused, even scoffed a little. But they said in France that women killed their newborn babies in order to secure eternal youth. If that was so, perhaps a little spell might preserve her life…
What was the harm? She closed her eyes, hearing the storm howl around her. “Greedigut,” she whispered, feeling the words on her lips. She caressed herself, kneeling on the deck inside the scratched pentagram. “Greedigut. Greedigut, come to me.”
The deck pitched crazily, the candles slid one way, then the next. She had to pause to catch them in their slide. It was all very distracting. How difficult to be a witch! Madame de Rochambeau had told her nothing of spells aboard ship. Perhaps they did not work. Perhaps it was all a lot of French foolishness.
“Greedigut…” she moaned. She caressed herself.
And then, she fancied she heard the storm abating.
Or was it just her imagination?
“Greedigut, come to me, have me, dwell in me…”
She imagined claws, she felt the wind whipping at her nightdress, she sensed a presence…
And the wind died.
Part V
The Mouth of the Dragon
Chapter 32
HUNTER AWOKE FROM a restless sleep with an odd sense that something was wrong. He sat up in bed, and realized that everything was quieter: the motion of the ship was less frantic, and the wind had died to a whisper.
He hurried onto the deck, where a light rain was falling. He saw that the seas were calmer, and visibility had increased. Enders, still at the tiller, looked half-dead but he was grinning.
“We weathered her, Captain,” he said. “Not much left to her, but we’ve come through.”
Enders pointed to starboard. There was land - the low, gray profile of an island.
“What is it?” Hunter said.
“Dunno,” Enders said. “But we’ll just make it.”
Their ship had been blown for two days and nights, and they had no idea of their position. They approached the little island, which was low, and scrubby, and uninviting. Even from a distance they could see the cactus plants thick along the shore.
“I reckon we’re down the Windward Chain,” Enders said, squinting judiciously. “Probably near the Boca del Dragon, and there’s no respite in those waters.” He sighed. “Wish we could see the sun, for a sighting.”
The Boca del Dragon - the Dragon’s Mouth - was the stretch of water between the Windward Caribbean islands and the coast of South America. It was a famous and feared stretch of water, though at the moment it seemed placid enough.
Despite calm seas, El Trinidad rolled and wallowed like a drunkard. Yet they managed with shredded canvas to round the southern tip of the island, and find a fair cove on the western shore. It was protected, and had a sandy bottom suitable for careening. Hunter secured the ship, and his exhausted crew went ashore to rest.
There was no sign of Sanson or the Cassandra; whether they had survived the storm was a matter of indifference to Hunter’s men, exhausted beyond the point of reasonable fatigue. The men lay sprawled in their wet clothes on the beach and slept with their faces in the sand, their bodies prostrate like corpses. The sun emerged, briefly, from behind thinning clouds. Hunter felt weariness overtake him, and slept as well.
The next three days were fair. The crew worked hard careening the ship, repairing the damage below the waterline, and the spars of the ragged superstructure. A search of the ship disclosed no wood aboard. Normally, a galleon the size of El Trinidad carried extra spars and masts in the hold, but these had been removed by the Spanish to allow more cargo. Hunter’s men had to make do as best they could.
Enders sighted the sun with his astrolabe and fixed their latitude. They were not far from the Spanish strongholds of Cartagena and Maricaibo, on the South American coast. But aside from this, they had no knowledge of their island, which they called No Name Cay.
Hunter felt a captain’s vulnerability with El Trinidad hauled over on her side, unseaworthy. Should they be attacked now, they would have a difficult time of it. Still he had no reason to fear anything; the island was obviously uninhabited, as were the two nearest little islands to the south.
But there was something hostile and uninviting about No Name. The land was arid, and thickly overgrown with cactus, in places as dense as any forest. Brightly colored birds chattered high up in the overgrowth, their cries carried by the wind. The wind never stopped; it was a hot, maddening wind that blew at almost ten knots, throughout the day and night, with only a brief respite at dawn. The men grew accustomed to working and sleeping with the whine of the wind in their ears.
Something about this place made Hunter post guards around the ship and the scattered campfires of the crew. He told himself it was the need to reestablish discipline among the men, but in truth it was some other foreboding. On the fourth evening, at dinner, he gave the night’s watches. Enders would take the first; he himself would take the midnight watch, and he would be relieved by Bellows. He sent a man off to notify Enders and Bellows. The man returned an hour later.
“Sorry, Captain,” he said. “I can’t find Bellows.”
“What do you mean, can’t find him?”
“He’s not to be found, Captain.”
Hunter scanned the undergrowth around the shore. “He’s off sleeping somewhere,” he said. “Find him and bring him to me. It will be the worse for him.”
“Aye, Captain,” the man said.
But a search of the cove did not yield any trace of Bellows. In the growing darkness, Hunter called off the search and collected his men around the fires. He counted thirty-four, including the Spanish prisoners and Lady Sarah. He ordered them to stay close to the fires, and assigned another man to take Bellows’s watch.
