The Solomon Key
Page 39
Standing on the main deck, he looked again to the mizzenmast and the mainmast, ignoring the lingering storm clouds. Both were without sails, reduced to bare poles stretching up into the sky, their ends splintered into jagged points. Then he turned and studied the foremast, the only sail still intact. But this observation only taunted his reason more. Managing to tear his eyes away from it, he began moving his feet, and navigated through a couple of his men, coming to the portside of the ship. Again, he leaned over her broken railing and peered down the side.
How was it possible?
The captain looked up from the passing water sloshing alongside the Sovereignty’s hull and fixed his gaze ahead to the portside bow — at the water it was somehow speedily cutting a path through.
“Strange.”
The voice behind startled him, and he turned to see his lieutenant standing there staring out into the vast ocean himself.
The captain frowned, moving his gaze over the rest of his crew. “What are they saying?”
The lieutenant shifted his eyes to the driver, to Britain’s flag flapping in the breeze. The red, white, and blue amalgamation of St. George’s Cross and St. Andrew’s Cross was still blowing in the wrong direction.
“They do not know what to think,” he replied. “Though the storm itself is the context through which they are interpreting this odd phenomenon.”
“Are they scared?”
“Of course. It has been two days since the storm overtook us. Two days since we have had any control of the ship, and now many of the men are beginning to wonder where this mysterious fate is taking them.”
Looking straight into the eyes of his old friend, the captain asked, “And what is it that you believe?”
He shrugged. “I cannot deny that the storm seemed to be of a distinct character.” His eyes went back out into the unknown. “It was not like anything that I have seen before.”
“You think it was evil.”
The lieutenant ignored the amusement that sat behind the statement because he knew it to be fabricated. He answered unashamedly, “There seemed to be a will behind it.”
The captain laughed nervously, attempting to dismiss such a ludicrous idea. “Listen to us, talking as if nature were a person!”
Eyes narrowing, he responded, “And yet, here we are with no sails to propel us, no means of our own by which to make a speedily retreat…”
The captain nodded in consent and finished the lieutenant’s thought for him, “…moving quickly through this dead calm.”
“It is not natural.”
Looking up into the lingering rain clouds, the captain asked another question, this one born of simple hope. “Do you think that this could be Providence guiding us? Saving us, even?”
“Perhaps I would have been more apt to consider such a pleasant thought if it were not for the nightmare that introduced us to such circumstances in the first place.”
There was no denying what his lieutenant was saying. He had seen the storm — had felt it — and it had not been according to the natural order of things. Maybe he would never be able to put into words what they had encountered out on the sea two days ago, but the inability to express it would never erase it or change it from being something other than what it was — a mystery, yes, but a reality nonetheless. For though they may not have seen one, they were all certain that this particular storm had a face. And it had not been the face of God. Simply recalling the way in which it had spread across the sky made his spine tingle. That cold darkness that penetrated his flesh seemed to pass right through his soul… And now, here they sat, captive to something they did not understand nor could ever hope to control. In their own power and by their own means they were but stranded in the middle of the Atlantic with half of the crew dead, most of their supplies lost, and no means of navigation whatsoever (for even the whipstaff had been destroyed). And yet there was indeed an unseen force moving them in contradiction to nature. But what was it, and where was it taking them?
Certainly not back to England.
“It would have been better to stay and fight,” the captain said, full of remorse.
But the lieutenant shook his head in respectful disagreement. “The pirates led us into a trap, and you did all that you could to save us. No one among the living could have foreseen this. It is not your fault.”
But the thought of something being at fault triggered another idea in his mind. “Do you suppose we could have a Jonah on board?”
“You mean someone that God is angry with, his presence among us bringing judgment on the whole ship?” He shook his head, though his attention was still captivated by the watery horizon. “Even if we found such a person and threw him overboard, where would that leave us? Would God tell us where we are, repair the whipstaff and return our charts?”
The captain thought about this. “You think it best to see where this invisible hand takes us?”
“I see no other option. It is either that or we starve.”
“We could eat the prisoner,” the captain jested with ill humor.
The prisoner had been caught trying to escape to the American colonies in a small ship manned with a hired crew. It was after attaining him and upon their return to England that they ran into a hoard of pirate ships. Though they were able to outrun the pirates by heading southwest and into a strange fog, they were unable to outrun the storm that the fog had veiled.
“I would not care to touch that man, let alone eat him,” responded the lieutenant. “But if there is a Jonah on this ship, he certainly has my vote.”
After a moment of silence and watching a few scattered water drops plunge into the surface of the water, the captain mumbled, “Would it be far-fetched to credit what is happening to our prisoner?”
“You are not suggesting that he is responsible for the storm, that he somehow plotted out this course for us?”
“No, I would not suggest all of that. I merely wonder if there could be a connection, no matter how small. After all, he is no ordinary man, is he?”
The lieutenant finally turned to face the captain. “Besides the fact that he has six fingers on his right hand, how different can he possibly be from the rest of the depraved lunatics roaming our countryside?”
“You do not give credence to the stories then?” The captain’s previous attempt to ignore such extreme possibilities had feigned quickly.
“Though I cannot explain what I have seen with more thoughts than I have already disclosed, I do have a difficult time believing the stories to be anything more than exaggerations.”
The captain frowned, confused as to how their roles had so quickly become reversed. “In light of what we just witnessed and what we are witnessing now, would it seem like so great a stretch to think of the supernatural as being present with us?”
“No, I suppose not.”
At that moment a cry went out from the bow, drawing their attention away from bizarre speculation and to the more immediate and tangible present.
“Land!” the voice was crying. “Land!”
Table of Contents
THE SOLOMON KEY
Unnamed
RECOMMENDATIONS
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PART I
HOLY SECRETS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
PART II
UNHOLY SECRETS
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
PART III
UNTOLD SECRETS
25
26
27
28
29
30
&n
bsp; 31
32
33
PART IV
ORDER OF SECRETS
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
NO MORE SECRETS
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE FOR PROGENY
PROGENY EXCERPT
Table of Contents
THE SOLOMON KEY
Unnamed
RECOMMENDATIONS
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PART I
HOLY SECRETS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
PART II
UNHOLY SECRETS
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
PART III
UNTOLD SECRETS
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
PART IV
ORDER OF SECRETS
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
NO MORE SECRETS
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE FOR PROGENY
PROGENY EXCERPT