Poseidon's Daughter

by Diane A. S. Stuckart

She paused, a look of cool amusement lightening her expression. “Surely you weren't expecting to see columns and statues down there? Oh my, you were, weren't you?”

  “Not precisely,” he hedged, praying that she would attribute the heat in his face to an overabundance of sun. When she merely waited in expectant silence, he gave his head a disgusted shake.

  “All right, so that was what I thought we'd find.” Still clinging to the rope ladder, he thrust the water glass into her arms, and then proceeded up the last rung. “Hell, the whole of Greece and Italy is bloody littered with old temples. I even know a chap who had one brought over for his garden in Savannah, just so he could...bloody hell!”

  So caught up had he been in his own defense, he had not noticed that the boat's pitching had increased. As he reached for the railing and went to swing his leg over it, he missed his grip and snatched a handful of air. For the merest heartbeat, he balanced on one leg like a Russian dancer, arms frantically flapping.

  Then another wave caught the boat, and he dropped like an anvil into the clear blue waters below.

  It was a relatively short fall, only half a dozen feet. Still, he had been taken unawares, so that his breath whooshed from his lungs as he hit the waves. The sounds from above— Halia's cry of warning, Rolle's careless shout of overboard, the resulting splash of his impact—all were muffled by the warm water that engulfed him as he plummeted, feet first, toward the bottom.

  Eyes burning from the brine, he squinted up at the now-distant surface where a watery outline of the boat was still visible. An agonizing pressure began to build in his ears, while an iron band seemed to be tightening about his chest with his effort not to breathe...a battle he could feel himself rapidly losing.

  Bloody, bloody hell!

  He damn sure wasn't ready to die, not this way, but it looked like he wasn't being given much choice. The water around him had turned from the palest blue to green now— though whether that was because he was on the verge of losing consciousness, or simply because the sun's rays did not penetrate this deeply, he wasn't sure.

  Vaguely, he was aware that a school of tiny, black-and-yellow striped fish was nibbling at his toes. One corner of his mind—the corner that wasn't giving way to outright panic—conceded the humor of it all. It seemed as if the long-ago prediction of the pirate Seamus O'Neill was about to come true.

  Malcolm was going to end his days as food for an ocean's worth of fish, just as his former partner once had threatened him.

  But even as salty water began seeping past his tightly clenched lips, he realized that his downward progress had slowed. Moreover, he was actually beginning to rise toward the surface again. Renewed hope swept him, and frantically he began sweeping his arms up and down, as if to climb his way back to the top.

  To his surprise, the motion did seem to speed his progress. He clawed at the water in a faster rhythm, watching as the water's color changed from green back to blue again, while the outline of the boat grew clearer. In a final burst of strength, he began kicking his legs as he'd seen swimmers do before. Just as the impulse to breathe in lungfuls of brine grew almost overpowering, he felt hands clutching at him, dragging him to the surface.

  He burst through the waves with an ungainly splash, alternately choking out sea water and gulping down mouthfuls of blessed air. Someone had guided him to the rope ladder, and he clung to its lower rung like the lifeline that it was. A moment later, he was aware that someone was beside him, easily bobbing about the surface. He scrubbed the water from his burning eyes and looked over to see just who his rescuer was.

  “You be all right now?” Captain Rolle asked, flashing him a bright white grin that Malcolm decided was the most beautiful in the world.

  He weakly nodded in reply, then gasped out, ”H-How long w-was I u-underwater?”

  “Half a minute, maybe less,” he said with a shrug, and then grinned again. “You think you might be climbin' out all right this time?”

  “I'm b-bloody sure not going to t-try that stunt again,” he wheezed in a stouter tone and reached for the rung above him. Haltingly, he climbed his way back to the top again; then, with the encouraging cries of his fellow crew members, he swung himself over the railing.

  A slim pair of arms grabbed him just as he was about to collapse onto the deck.

  “Thank God...I was afraid that you'd drowned,” Halia cried as he sagged against her, her hold around his bare torso tightening into something suspiciously like an embrace. Reflexively, Malcolm pulled her to him.

  Then he realized what he had just done and broke their connection, hastily stepping to one side. Bloody hell, the sea water must have addled his brains! What was he doing, softening toward her like this? He was supposed to be letting her make all the overtures.

  He caught up the discarded towel and scrubbed it over his face, all too aware of the interested stares of the crew who, like as not, had found the entire incident exceedingly entertaining. He must look the proper fool... and not just because he'd almost drowned himself.

  Yet, more disturbing was the fact that his uncensored moment of need had awakened in him some far more complicated emotion that he could neither name nor deny.

  Rolle, meanwhile, had made his own way up the ladder. He stood now alongside them, dripping sea water and good cheer. “So, the sharks not be eatin' today, after all,” he commented to Malcolm, then turned to Halia. “Shall we be get-tin’ on wit’ it, den?”

  “Yes...certainly.”

  She shook her head as if to clear it of some unpleasant thought. Careful to avoid Malcolm's gaze, she caught up her overskirt and tied it over her now-dry clothes again, then started toward the bow.

  Oh, my, whatever had just happened here?

  Halia knelt beside her carpetbag and began searching through it, grateful for the distraction that she hoped would give her flushed cheeks time to cool. She had made quite the spectacle of herself, she miserably realized. Here, she literally had flung herself at a man who cared nothing for her, only to have him rebuff her...and before witnesses, to boot.

  But then, her reaction had been one of pure relief, for she had thought for a few heart-stopping moments that he must surely drown.

  She briefly shut her eyes at the memory. She had been frightened nearly out of her wits when she'd seen Malcolm hit the waves and then drift steadily downward. To be sure, he had warned her that he could not swim, but it never had occurred to her that he could not even keep himself afloat for a time.

  Her own first impulse had been to leap after him and drag him back to the surface—the sort of rescue she'd had occasion to perform once or twice before while traveling the islands with her father. Captain Rolle had forestalled her, however, and even administered a mild rebuke.

  Let him be doin' what he can to save himself, before you be goin' in after him like his mama. Then, when she had opened her mouth to protest, he cut her short with the amiable reminder, An dat be an order, Miss Halia.

  Not prepared to mutiny against her hired captain, she had clamped her lips shut and frantically watched Malcolm's bottomward progress. Doubtless, he would concur with Rolle's assessment and resent her interference, for she had long since learned that most men believed pride took precedence over prudence.

  But when seconds passed and he did not resurface, her uneasiness flared into outright panic. She had just decided to risk Rolle's ire and leap in to rescue Malcolm anyway, when she saw that he was making his own way back to the top. And Rolle—apparently satisfied that the Englishman was a fighter, if not a swimmer—then relaxed his own orders and had himself helped Malcolm back on board.

  Sternly, Halia shook off the memory. She had done nothing amiss, after all. Indeed, she would have shown the same concern had it been any other of the crew that had been put into danger.

  But would you have flung your arms around one of them in so heedless a manner? her sly inner voice wanted to know.

  Not willing to dignify the silent question with a reply, she caught up her sheaf of maps and a
handful of pencils, then returned to where Rolle and the crew were waiting. Malcolm, she noted from the corner of her eye, had dried off and once more donned his shirt and boater. He stood slightly apart from the rest, looking uncustomarily subdued and more than a little out of sorts.

  Careful to avoid his glance, she spread the largest of her maps atop the closed hatch. “Here is our position,” she began, penciling an X in the approximate spot.

  She unrolled a second map that afforded a more detailed view of that section of coastline and began sketching in a row of rough rectangles.

  “What I saw,” she went on, “was a series of stone blocks. There were perhaps two dozen of them, arranged three and four across—like giant cobblestones, if you will. Of course, it is difficult to tell much from this vantage point, but they appear to me to be entirely too symmetrical to be a natural formation. Their edges are straight-cut and butt up against each other with almost no space between. They could well be the top of a broad wall—”

  “Or maybe a road,” Rolle interjected. He rubbed his chin and gave her a thoughtful look. “Seems how my grand-daddy once be tellin' me ‘bout a road beneath the water.”

  “You mean, there is an oral tradition concerning these rocks?”

  He nodded. “Not many folks be seein' it, he says, because it be comin' an’ goin'. He be seein' once, hisself, when he was a boy...but then a big gale be comin' through, an’ the sea be swallowin' it up again.”

  “And did your grandfather say who built this road?”

  “Nobody be knowin'. Seems that, before white folks be discoverin' this place, some Indian tribe be settlin' here. An’ before them ...”

  He trailed off with a shrug, but Halia was too excited by this bit of intelligence to worry. Nowhere in her father's notes had he indicated that this section of rock had been documented by others. Still, if stories about it dated back to well before any official settlement of the islands, she would have a better chance of substantiating her own theory.

  She gave Rolle a hopeful look. “I don't suppose that your grandfather... that is, has he already passed away?”

  “Two summers ago, when we be out bonefishin'. But maybe I can be checkin' around to see if anyone else be rememberin' those stories.”

  “Very good. For now, I think we should have the divers begin marking boundary areas so we can begin measurements. And perhaps one of them might climb the mast and see what the site looks like from above.”

  Rolle proceeded to give the orders and, for the next few hours, Halia and the divers—the latter divided into pairs— settled into a routine. Using ribbons of sturdy red cotton cloth tied to rocks, they began laying out on the sea floor a checkerboard grid that stretched in four directions from the boat. That project, she had determined, should occupy them for the next several days. Once those preliminaries were completed, they would work within each segment of that grid, measuring the slabs and noting other unusual formations.

  Settled comfortably in the bow, she watched wistfully as each team of divers took their turn on the bottom. In the next few days, she fully intended to make several dives. Still, she knew that she lacked the lifetime of experience that these men had in working below the ocean's surface for minutes at a time. Her skills would be turned to task aboard ship. In addition to directing the exploration, she would collect the data and update her charts and maps, as well as catalog any finds the divers might make.

  And as for Malcolm, she thought with a sniff, he could either assist Captain Rolle or else stay out of the way...whichever he wanted, so long as he kept clear of her.

  It was mid-afternoon when she called a halt, not wishing to tax the divers to their limits on the first day. Satisfied with their progress, she smiled as the boat skimmed over the glasslike waves heading back to the dock. They had found something of significance, she was certain.

  Fondly, she clutched the coin pendant that she wore around her throat. Whether or not the rocks would prove to be the remains of the long-lost continent of Atlantis still remained to be seen. Before they had weighed anchor and left the site, however, she had sworn Rolle and the crew to silence. No need to risk anyone else knowing what they were about. She had emphasized that with the promise of a substantial bonus and the assurance of a mention for each man in her official account of the find.

  All had taken a solemn oath to that effect—all, that was, save Malcolm.

  I'm bloody well not going to tell anyone, and you know it, had been his sharp reply when she timidly had attempted to elicit a similar vow from him. She had not pressed the issue, affected despite herself by his wretched state.

  Once they finally reached the harbor again and the Johnesta was safely docked, she allowed herself another look his way. His exposed skin was the same bright red as the cooked stone crabs she had seen the natives prepare, and his expression, equally pained. He had kept up with his shipboard duties, however, though she wondered if he would make it through a second such day tomorrow.

  “You will be joining us for supper?” she ventured.

  He gave a curt assent and started from the boat. In another moment, he was making his way down the pier, his gait steady if a trifle stiff.

  “Oh, my,” she murmured as she and Rolle started off in the same direction. “I do hope Mal—that is, Mr. Northrup can make it back to the guest house unassisted. Perhaps I should—”

  “Now, don't you be runnin' after him, offerin' sympathy,” Rolle mildly cut her short. “He be a tough enough man, for all he can't swim no better than a babe, an’ ain't no man be wantin' to admit any kind of weakness.”

  “I suppose not.” She gave a little sigh and glanced over at Rolle as he allowed himself a chuckle. “What is it, Captain?”

  “It's just that I be seein' now why you be likin' this Englishman. It's because he be remindin' you of your father.”

  “My father?”

  She halted in midstep to stare at him, aghast. “Why, that is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard. My father was a scholar, a gentleman... and Mr. Northrup is rogue, a scoundrel. The two are nothing at all alike.”

  “If you be sayin' so, Miss Halia,” he solemnly agreed. “I will be seein' you in the morning, then.”

  They parted ways at the end of the pier, Rolle heading into town and Halia towards the low bluffs on its outskirts. His last comment about Malcolm, however, had shaken her somewhat, so that she found her steps slowed.

  He be reminding you of your father.

  It was an outlandish charge...or was it? Frowning, she tried to see her father as a stranger might have. If she were to be completely honest, she could admit that he had always been a bit glib for a scholar. And perhaps a bit too much devil-may-care for a man who'd been left with raising a daughter alone. But those charges were all that she would concede.

  “They are nothing alike,” she stubbornly murmured. But then, what else was it that Rolle had said—that she liked the Englishman?

  That assertion, she was less able to deny, though she intended to stifle this fancy once and for all. For there was no future for her or any other woman with his sort of man...this, she knew with certainty. But for now, what was she to do?

  A smile flickered briefly on her lips as a possible solution came to her. Perhaps it was time to give Lally and her voodoo spells a chance, she told herself. Had she not seen countless other young women come to the voodooienne for help with their love lives?

  For, if Lally could conjure up a love charm guaranteed to win a man's heart, why could she not cast a spell to ward off the same?

  ~ Chapter 13 ~

  “Ye look bloody awful,” was Wilkie's dour assessment as he stuck his head out of his room to watch Malcolm make his careful progress down the corridor.

  Painfully, Malcolm halted and turned his head in that direction. He was in no mood for his partner's jibes, given the events of the day.

  “I'd like to see how bloody hearty you'd look,” he clipped out, “if you'd been burnt by a hellish sun, fallen off a boat and almo
st drowned, and then had to walk uphill all the bloody way home after it was over.”

  The older man shrugged, unmoved.

  “ 'Tweren't my idea, comin' ‘ere. I told ye from the start 'twas a lot o' foolishness. So, 'ow many pots o' gold did you find?”

  Malcolm cleared his throat. “We did locate a rather promising site that we will explore further tomorrow—”

  “Nothin’, eh?” Wilkie cut him short with a look of sour satisfaction. “I won't say 'ow as I told ye so...but I told ye so. 'Tis a bleedin' goose chase we're on, for all yer Miss Da'enport claims otherwise.”

  Malcolm would have countered his partner's words, save that he had begun to fear the same thing. The brief glimpse he'd had of Halia's so-called Atlantis site appeared, to him, to be little different from the rocks that made up the island's beaches and low cliffs. Only her certainty that she had discovered something special kept his hopes alive.

  But she'd bloody well better find something more interesting than a pile of rocks before the week's end, he grimly told himself. He'd give it that long, at least, before deciding whether or not to simply cut his losses.

  To Wilkie, however, he merely said, “They'll be serving supper in another hour or so. Make my excuses, would you...and see if you can't get someone to send me up a tray. In the meantime, I think I'll just stay in my room and die of a bloody heat stroke.”

  “An’ that's another thing,” the other man indignantly pointed out. “All this bleedin' sun, 'tain't natural—nor 'ealthy neither, by the looks o' ye. Give me a right civilized pea-souper of a fog, any day.”

  With a promise to see about dinner, Wilkie shut his door again. Malcolm slowly continued down the corridor, not especially cheered by the conversation they'd just had. This was the first time Wilkie had not joined wholeheartedly in one of his schemes, a sign that Malcolm found less than promising. Still, perhaps he'd not made himself clear on the whole point of this expedition...namely, for Malcolm to seduce his way into Halia's good graces and then casually help himself to any treasure she might stumble across.