back into the night air and slipped silently through the dark streets of Port Royal.
…
HE ENCOUNTERED Lieutenant Dodson by accident. The soldier was singing a song, stumbling drunk through the streets with two whores at his side. Hunter saw him at the end of the High Street and turned back, slipping down Queen Street, turning east on Howell Alley, just in time to meet Dodson at the corner.
“Who goes there?” Dodson demanded, speaking loudly. “Know you that there is a curfew? Be gone else I shall clap you in the Marshallsea.”
In shadow, Hunter said, “I have just come from there.”
“Eh?” Dodson said, tilting his head toward the voice. “What means your churlish speech? I shall have you know-”
“Hunter!” shrieked the whores, and they both fled. Deprived of their support, Dodson fell drunkenly down into the mud.
“Damn you for uncertain quim,” he grunted, and struggled to get up. “Look at my uniform now, damn you all.” He was covered in mud and manure.
He had already gotten to his knees when the words of the women suddenly reached his alcohol-fogged brain. “Hunter?” he asked softly. “You are Hunter?”
Hunter nodded in the shadows.
“Then I shall arrest you for the scoundrel and pirate that you are,” Dodson said. But before he could get back to his feet, Hunter kicked him in the stomach and sent him sprawling.
“Ow!” Dodson said. “You hurt me, damn you.”
They were the last words he spoke. Hunter gripped the soldier by the neck and pressed his face into the mud and dung of the street, holding the squirming body, which struggled with increasing force and, finally, toward the end, with violent wrenchings and twistings until at last it did not move.
Hunter stepped back, gasping for breath with the exertion.
He looked around the dark, deserted town. A marching patrol of ten militiamen went by; he stepped back into the shadows until they had passed.
Two whores came by. “Are you Hunter?” one asked, with no sign of fear.
He nodded.
“Bless you,” she said. “You come see me, and you’ll have your way without a farthing spent.” She laughed.
Giggling, the two women disappeared into the night.
…
HE STOOD INSIDE the Black Boar tavern. There were fifty people there, but he saw only James Phips, dapper and handsome, drinking with several other merchantmen. Phips’s companions immediately slipped away, showing aspects of terror on their faces. But Phips himself, after an initial shock, took on a hearty manner.
“Hunter!” he said, grinning broadly. “Damn my eyes, but you have done what we all knew you would. A round for everyone, I say, to celebrate your new freedom.”
There was utter silence in the Black Boar. No one spoke. No one moved.
“Come now,” Phips said loudly. “I call for a round in honor of Captain Hunter! A round!”
Hunter moved forward, toward Phips’s table. His soft footsteps on the dirt floor of the tavern were the only sound in the room.
Phips eyed Hunter uneasily. “Charles,” he said. “Charles, this stern countenance does not become you. It is time to be merry.”
“Is it?”
“Charles, my friend,” Phips said, “you surely understand I bear you no ill will. I was forced to appear on the tribunal. It was all the work of Hacklett and Scott; I swear it. I had no choice. I’ve a ship to sail in a week’s time, Charles, and they would not give me embarkation papers, so they said. And I knew you would make good your escape. Only an hour ago, I was telling Timothy Flint that very expectation. Timothy: answer true, was I not telling you that Hunter would be free? Timothy?”
Hunter took out his pistol and aimed it at Phips.
“Now Charles,” Phips said. “I beg you to be reasonable. A man must be practical. Do you think I would have condemned you if ever I believed sentence would be carried out? Do you think so? Do you?”
Hunter said nothing. He cocked the pistol, a single metallic click in the silence of the room.
“Charles,” Phips said, “it does my heart good to see you again. Come, have a drink with me, and let us forget-”
Hunter shot him, full in the chest. Everyone ducked away as fragments of bone and a geyser of blood blew outward from his heart in a hissing rush. Phips dropped a cup that had been raised in one hand; the cup struck the table and rolled to the floor.
Phips’s eyes followed it. He reached for it with his hand and said hoarsely, “A drink, Charles…” And then he collapsed on the table. Blood seeped over the rude wood.
Hunter turned and left.
As he came out on the street again, he heard the tolling of the church bells of St. Anne’s. They rang incessantly, the signal for an attack on Port Royal, or some other emergency.
Hunter knew it could have only one meaning - his escape from the jail of Marshallsea had been discovered.
He did not mind at all.
…
LEWISHAM, JUDGE OF the Admiralty, had his quarters behind the courthouse. He awoke to the church bells in alarm, and sent a servant out to see what was the matter. The man returned a few minutes after.
“What is it?” Lewisham said. “Speak, man.”
The man looked up. It was Hunter.
“How is it possible?” Lewisham asked.
Hunter cocked the gun. “Easily,” he said.
“Tell me what you wish.”
“I shall,” Hunter said. And he told him.
…
COMMANDER SCOTT, DROWSY with drink, lay sprawled on a couch in the library of the Governor’s Mansion. Mr. Hacklett and his mistress had long since retired. He awoke to the church bells and instantly knew what had happened; he felt a terror unlike any he had ever known. Moments later, one of his guard burst into the room with the news: Hunter had escaped, all the pirates were vanished, and Poorman, Foster, Phips, and Dodson were all dead.
“Get my horse,” Scott commanded, and hastily arranged his disarrayed clothing. He emerged at the front of the Governor’s Mansion, looked around cautiously, and jumped on his stallion.
He was unhorsed a few moments later, and flung rudely to the cobblestones no more than a hundred yards from the Governor’s Mansion. A contingent of vagabonds led by Richards, the governor’s manservant - and directed by Hunter, that scoundrel - clapped him in irons and took him away to Marshallsea.
To await trial: the nerve of the ruffians!
…
HACKLETT AWOKE TO the tolling of the church bells, and also guessed their meaning. He leapt out of bed, ignoring his wife, who had lain the whole night, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to his drunken snores. She was in pain and she had been badly humiliated.
Hacklett went to the chamber door and called to Richards.
“What has transpired?”
“Hunter escaped,” Richards said flatly. “Dodson and Poorman and Phips are all dead, perhaps more.”
“And the man is still loose?”
“I do not know,” Richards said, pointedly failing to add Your Excellency.
“Dear God,” Hacklett said. “Bolt the doors. Call the guard. Alert Commander Scott.”
“Commander Scott left some few minutes past.”
“Left? Dear God,” Hacklett said, and slammed the chamber door, locking it. He turned back to the bed. “Dear
