Seated alongside him, Lazue said, “They do not eat women.”
“Fortunate for you,” Hunter said.
“And for Lady Sarah.”
“It is said,” Lazue said, chuckling in the darkness, “that the Caribee do not eat Spaniards, either. They are too tough. The Dutch are plump but tasteless, the English indifferent, but the French delectable. It is true, do you not think?”
“I want her back,” Hunter said grimly. “We need her. How can we tell the governor that we rescued his niece only to lose her to savages for their boucan-barbecue?”
“You have no sense of humor,” Lazue said.
“Not tonight.”
He looked back at the other boats, following in the darkness. All together, he had taken twenty-seven men, leaving Enders back on the El Trinidad, trying hastily to refit her by the light of fires. Enders was a wizard with ships, but this was asking too much of him. Even if they escaped with Lady Sarah, they could not leave No Name for a day, perhaps more. And in that time the Indians would attack.
He felt his longboat crunch up against the sandy shore. The men jumped out into knee-deep water. Hunter whispered, “Everybody out but the Jew. Careful with the Jew.”
Indeed, a moment later, the Jew stepped gingerly onto dry land, his arms cradling a precious cargo.
“Was it dampened?” Hunter whispered.
“I do not think so,” Don Diego said. “I was careful.” He blinked his weak eyes. “I cannot see well.”
“Follow me,” Hunter said. He led his group into the interior of the island. Behind him, on the beach, the other two longboats were discharging their armed crews. The men moved stealthily into the cactus ashore. The night was moonless and very dark. Soon they were all deep in the island, moving toward the fires and the pounding drums.
The Caribee village was much larger than he expected: a dozen mud huts with grass roofs, ranged in a semicircle around several blazing fires. Here the warriors, painted a fierce red, danced and howled, their bodies casting long, shifting shadows. Several wore crocodile skins over their heads; others raised human skulls into the air. All were naked. They sang an eerie, monotone chant.
The object of their dance could be observed above the fire. There, resting on a lattice of green wood strips, was the armless, legless, gutted torso of a seaman. To one side, a group of women were cleaning the intestines of the man.
Hunter did not see Lady Sarah. Then the Moor pointed. He saw her, lying on the ground to one side. Her hair was matted with blood. She did not move. She was probably dead.
Hunter looked at his men. Their expressions registered shock and rage. He whispered a few words to Lazue, then set out with Bassa and Don Diego, crawling around the periphery of the camp.
The three men entered one hut, knives ready. The hut was deserted. Skulls hung from the ceiling, clinking together in the wind that blew through the encampment. There was a basket of bones in a corner.
“Quickly,” Hunter said, ignoring this.
Don Diego set his grenadoe in the center of the room, and lit the fuse. The three men slipped back outside, to a far corner of the encampment. Don Diego lit the fuse on a second grenadoe, and waited.
The first grenadoe exploded with stunning effect. The hut blew apart in a thousand fragments; the stunned lobster-colored warriors howled in frightened surprise. Don Diego lobbed the second grenadoe into the fire. It exploded moments later. Warriors screamed as they were riddled with fragments of flying metal and glass.
Simultaneously, Hunter’s men opened fire from the underbrush.
Hunter and the Moor crept forward, retrieved the body of Lady Sarah Almont, and moved back into the bushes again. All around them, the Caribee warriors screamed, howled, and died. The grass roofs of the huts caught fire. Hunter’s last glimpse of the camp was that of a blazing inferno.
Their retreat was hasty and unplanned. Bassa, with his enormous strength, carried the Englishwoman easily. She moaned.
“She’s alive,” Hunter said.
She moaned again.
At a brisk trot, the men hurried back to the beach, and their boats. They escaped the island without further incident.
…
BY DAWN, THEY were all safely back to the ship. Enders, the sea artist, had given over work on the galleon to Hunter, while he attended the woman’s injuries. By mid-morning, he was able to report.
“She’ll survive,” he said. “Nasty blow on the head, but nothing serious.” He looked at the ship. “Wish we were as well off here.”
Hunter had been trying to get the careened ship ready to sail. But there was still much to do: the mainmast was still weak, and the maintop missing; the foremast was entirely gone, and there was still a large hole below the waterline. They had torn out much of the deck to obtain lumber for the repairs, and soon they would have to tear up part of the lower gun deck. But progress was slow.
“We can’t be off before tomorrow morning,” Hunter said.
“I don’t fancy the night,” Enders said, looking around the island. “Quiet enough now. But I don’t fancy staying the night.”
“Nor I,” Hunter said.
They worked straight through the night, the exhausted men going without sleep in their frantic haste to finish work on the ship. A heavy guard was posted, making the work slower, but Hunter felt it was necessary.
At midnight, the drums began to pound once more and they continued for the better part of an hour. Then there was an ominous silence.
The men were unnerved; they did not want to work, and Hunter had to urge them onward. Toward dawn, he was standing alongside a seaman on the beach, helping him to hold down a plank of lumber, when the man slapped his neck.
“Damn mosquitoes,” he said.
And then, with an odd look on his face, he collapsed, coughed, and died.
Hunter bent over him. He looked at the neck, and saw only a pinprick, with a single red drop of blood. Yet the man was dead.
From somewhere near the bow, he heard a scream, and another man tumbled to the sand, dead. His crew was in confusion; the posted guards came running back toward the ship; the men working huddled under the hull.
Hunter looked again at the dead man at his feet. Then he saw something in the man’s hand. It was a tiny, feathered dart with a needle point.
Poison darts.
“They’re coming,” shouted the lookouts. The men scrambled behind bits of wood and debris, anything that would afford protection. They waited tensely. Yet no one came; the bushes and cactus clumps along the shore were silent.
Enders crept over to Hunter. “Shall we resume work?”
“How many have I lost?”
“Peters, sir.” Enders looked down. “And Maxwell here.”
Hunter shook his head. “I can’t lose more.” His crew was cut to thirty, now. “Wait for the dawn.”
“I’ll pass the word,” Enders said, and crawled away. As he did, there was a whine and a thwack! And a small feathered dart buried itself in the wood near Hunter’s ear. He ducked down again, and waited.
Nothing further happened until dawn, when, with an unearthly wail, the red-painted men came out from the brush and descended on the beach. Hunter’s men answered with a round of musket-fire. A dozen of the savages dropped on the sand, and the others fell back into hiding.
Hunter and his men waited, crouched and uncomfortable, until midday. When nothing occurred, Hunter cautiously gave word to resume work. He led a party of men inland. The savages were gone without a trace.
He returned to the ship. His men were haggard, weary, moving slowly. But Enders was cheerful. “Cross your fingers and praise Providence,” he said, “and we’ll be off soon.”
As the sound of hammering and construction began afresh, he went to see Lady Sarah.
