Despite insisting they were all returning home, the Avenger and the Tribute had fallen away, and after a heated family conference, were bound for New Providence where the Pirate Wolf and Jonas would rendezvous with the other captains to tally their successes. In a month or so the privateers who had come together so willingly to attack the Spanish fleet, would disband and sail their separate ways. It would be every man for himself again, but for the time being they were brethren and had unified into a magnificent fighting force to shatter Spain’s hopes of amassing another armada.
Juliet’s Iron Rose, carrying the gravest of the wounded on board, had kept her ship apace with Gabriel, but once they reached open water and clear seas, she had loosened the reins and after three days with nary another ship in sight, she had signalled her intention to speed ahead and would likely reach the Cay long before the laboring galleon.
Gabriel took one of the charts and rolled it, then left the cabin and climbed topside. He was struck, as always, by the ungainly sight of the galleon’s high sides and towering fore- and aftercastles. Further encumbering the ship's speed was the enormous weight of her ordnance. Two tiers of thirty-two pounders gave her fearsome firepower, but cost her the agility to best deploy it.
As he climbed to the stern deck, Gabriel made a mental wish-list of changes to make on the galleon, not the least of which was a new design for steering the ungainly beast. At the moment, turning her felt much like trying to turn a horse in quicksand, with about as much response from the helm.
Stubs was on deck and touched his brow with a forefinger as Gabriel appeared. "Cap’n."
Dante squinted his good eye to look up at the sails. "A fair wind blowing this morning I see."
"Fair and clear," Stubs nodded. "Cook has finally managed to tame the galley stoves without blowin' himself up an' there's hot porridge an' boiled pork in the offing."
"Praise be. I'm hungry enough to turn cannibal. Any sightings through the night?"
"It were quiet an’ dark enough, but the watch up in the tops just reported a sighting. A single ship with no sails showing."
"She’s laying still in the water?"
"Still... or barely moving."
"Flags?
"Too far to say but he don't think she's a Spaniard." Stubs handed him the telescoping spyglass and pointed to a spot on the seemingly empty horizon. Gabriel drew the glass out to its full length and after a moment of slowly scanning the surface of the water, he honed in on the tiny dark blot. There were no riding lights twinkling in the distance, and no sails set, which would explain why the watch had nearly missed it.
He swung the glass toward the south, yet despite making three passes, there was no trace of the Iron Rose ahead. Juliet had sailed beyond the line of the horizon during the night, but he was not worried. His gun captains had run drills on the cannon and his crew was more than able to blast a single ship out of the water. Any English or Frenchman returning from the battle with the flota would recognize the Dante colors. The only wild card was a privateer newly arrived from across the Ocean Sea, bristling with a crew eager to make its first kill.
"What do you make of it?"
Stubs explored the inside of his cheek with his tongue as he considered his answer. "Aye, well, it could be a Spaniard runnin' scairt. Could be English or French, doin' like us and favorin' an easterly arc to stay out o' harm’s way. Could be any damned thing, as a fact. We bear the silhouette of a fully armed warship, which'd cause many a common merchantman to steer well clear of us."
"Thus we can rule out a Spanish straggler or any ship out of Havana patrolling the line, for they would likely make haste toward us rather than away."
Stubs nodded and spat over the rail. "True enough."
"Alter our course a point or two. Let's see what she does." Gabriel folded the glass and handed it back to Stubs. "The smell of food beckons me. Let me know if she balks."
~~
Nothing changed over the next hour except the direction of the unknown ship. At first sighting she appeared to turn onto a parallel course with the Endurance. By the time Gabriel had enjoyed a thick chunk of boiled pork belly and a steaming bowl of burgoo thickened with eggs, the unidentified ship had swung on a westerly path and turned north. He was about to dismiss it as being of no further consequence when the topman hailed from the crows nest and said she was tacking east again.
"The Devil only knows why," Gabriel murmured, looking through the spyglass again. "But it looks like she is going in a fixed circle."
The change of course he had ordered had brought the Endurance close enough that the vessel could be seen with the naked eye, and when viewed through the glass, had borne the recognizable silhouette of an English merchant ship. They could see that most of her sails were furled, leaving only an upper mainsail to keep her moving.
"I was ever a curious fellow, Master Stubs," Gabriel said slowly. "Bring us closer. She may be in distress.”
“If she is, I ‘ope the king himself is on board, otherwise Cap’n Simon will ‘ave your gizzards for garters.”
“Luckily for me then, that he does not wear garters,” Gabriel murmured through a smirk.
“For this, I warrant he’d make an exception.”
The order was, nonetheless, passed to the tops and within seconds, cleats were loosened, yards and rigging creaked as the huge canvas sails were swung about and angled to catch the wind. The Endurance responded with enough spirit to put a grudging smile of approval on Gabriel’s lips. That smile vanished, along with any further thought of approaching the English vessel when they came within half a mile and saw the large yellow flag flying from the masthead.
"God save our souls," Stubs said under his breath. "She’s a plague ship."
"Keep our distance," Gabriel ordered quickly. "Hold us upwind if you please."
Second only to fire, disease was feared the most on board a ship. The crew had seen the flag and stood silent at the rails, staring across the open water at the lifeless ship. No one had appeared on deck. No one had sounded an alarm at the galleon's approach.
Examining the ship carefully through the spyglass, Gabriel could see that the whipstaff was tied off by cables to keep the vessel circling. One of the foresails had come loose from the lines and a corner of canvas flapped listlessly in the breeze. He could also see the bodies, slumped where they had fallen. There was no movement on board. No sign of life above or below decks. When she turned, he could read the name painted in gilt across the stern: Eliza Jane.
Gabriel lowered the glass. "Load the larboard battery, Stubs. We dare not risk leaving her afloat to carry her rats ashore. We'll hole her and sink her and pray for the souls she takes with her."
"Ye want I should fire a warnin' shot first?"
"To warn who? The ghosts?"
"A courtesy to Neptune. Let him know them souls are comin'."
Gabriel nodded. "A single shot over the bow then. Warn the men I will be timing them as if it was a drill. I want the count between firing and reloading no more than twenty seconds. Three full broadsides should do it."
While Stubs relayed the command to the gun captains, Gabriel raised the glass and swept the length and breadth of the plague ship again. He felt a familiar prickle across the nape of his neck and wondered what it was about the vessel that was setting off tiny alarms. It was a fine, strong ship; double the shame for having to sink her. But if it carried the plague or the yellow fever or the pox there was no salvaging it. A single rat, should it survive, could come ashore and wipe out the entire population of an island.
Behind him, the gun captains were ready. The monstrous culverins were loaded, the fuses lit. Gabriel nodded once to Stubs, who touched a smoking linstock to the small swivel gun mounted on the stern rail. The powder caught with a puffft and the charge exploded, sending a two-pound iron ball hurling out over the side of the ship to waken Neptune. Gun crews shouted their readiness. Men stood by with fresh loads of powder and balls, with sponges and tompions to swab out the barrels and pack a fr
esh shot down the brass throats.
Gabriel swept the glass along the deck of the Eliza Jane one last time then raised his arm to give the signal to fire.
CHAPTER FOUR
Evangeline Chandler was startled awake by the screeching whistle of the shot as it carved an arc over the bow of the Eliza Jane and splashed into the water. It took her a moment to scramble out of her cubbyhole beneath the bowsprit and pull herself upright. Her legs were cramped, she was desperately weak and had to grab hold of a shearing pole to gain enough leverage to see over the gunwale.
Where there had been only vast, endless stretches of water and sky the previous two days, there now sat a monstrous Spanish galleon, weathered and battle-scarred, with two full rows of black-snouted cannon aimed at the Eliza Jane.
As she struggled to steady her legs beneath her, the wind snatched at her hair and sent long blonde streamers across her eyes, momentarily blinding her. She swept them aside just as a sound unlike anything she had ever heard shattered the air and brought hell screaming across the span of clear water between the two ships.
The entire side of the galleon erupted with spitting forks of flame as both decks of guns fired. The ships were so close it took barely two heartbeats for the barrage of shots to reach the Eliza Jane, some thumping into the solid wooden hull, some blasting through the rails and smashing them inward, spraying the deck with a deadly hail of knife-like splinters. Some crashed into the yards and rigging, bringing down lines and sail. Some struck the masts and ricocheted onto the deck, rolling wildly through any obstacle that stood in the way.
Eva screamed as a shot struck the extended arm of the bowsprit and snapped it cleanly in two. She was thrown off her feet and engulfed in a cloud of smoke and cinders. Covering her head with her hands, she curled into a ball and screamed again as the planking beneath her heaved and buckled.
~~
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire dammit!" Gabriel shouted over the roar of the guns and leaped up onto the fat barrel of a culverin, the glass to his eye again. The broadside had produced a thick haze of sulphurous smoke, and he had to wait for it to clear before he could get a clear view of the English ship. He was not even sure he had seen what he thought he had seen in that split second before his arm dropped. Had something... someone moved in the bow? A vision? A mirage? A ghostly siren? It had to be the latter, for it was not possible that he had seen a woman with long flowing blonde hair standing there.
The seconds ticked away interminably slowly. The drift of smoke moved lazily away on the breeze and Gabriel could feel the eyes of the crew fixed on him, the guns already reloaded, the fuses smoking, the powder poured into the touch holes.
"Captain?"
"Wait," he told Stubs. "Just wait one more minute. For an instant there I thought I saw..."
He blinked his good eye and focussed again.
"There!" he shouted excitedly, pointing. "In the bow. There is someone on board."
Stubs snapped open a second spyglass and aimed it at the bow of the Eliza Jane.
As expected, the galleon's first broadside had done a tremendous amount of damage against the unresisting target. At first Stubs did not see anything beyond the split rails and yards, the crushed planks and broken spars. But then, as the plumes of dust settled and the last wisps of smoke cleared, he too saw what had caused the hairs across the nape of Gabriel’s neck to stand on end.
It was a woman.
Or a wraith.
She was dressed in a long shapeless white garment. Her hair was as yellow as the sun and blew free in the wind. She had risen from a crouch and now stood motionless at the rail staring across the water at the Endurance.
It was evident by the buzz on the gun deck that the crew had seen her as well. The most superstitious of the lot crossed themselves over and over and mumbled words to ward off any curses. Those who did not believe in specters or sirens looked away and then looked back hoping it was merely a trick of the smoke.
"Do you see her?" Gabriel asked warily. "Is my eye playing tricks or do you see her too, dammit?"
"Aye," Stubs said slowly. "I see her. Though she must have the devil on her shoulder if she survived that round." He crossed himself twice, hastily, and spat a wad of phlegm over the rail.
"Rowly!"
Standing above them on the quarterdeck, the helmsman tore his eyes away from the English ship and snapped to attention. "Aye Captain?"
"Bring us within hailing distance."
"Sir?"
Gabriel lowered the glass and repeated the order through clenched teeth. "Within hailing distance, Master Rowlandson, and look sharp about it."
Rowly touched a forelock and passed the order along. The crew was spooked and thus hesitant to respond, for everyone had heard tales of beautiful, half-naked sea nymphs who lured sailors to their deaths. Compounding that fear was the fact that even if someone was still alive on board the English ship, it flew the yellow flag warning all sailors to stay away.
Stubs was not easily swayed by superstition, but neither was he altogether willing to tempt the Fates and dismiss the powers of an otherworldly being. He glanced at Gabriel and pushed his tongue from one cheek to the other.
"I am aware, Master Stubs," Gabriel said evenly, reading the warning in the quartermaster’s eyes. "I am well aware."
It took a further hour of maneuvring to bring the Endurance close enough for Dante to hail the other ship through a brass speaking trumpet. Throughout that full hour the figure of the woman did not move from the bow. Indeed, Gabriel might have begun to believe she was a statue if not for the occasional hand she raised to push the golden streamers of hair off her face. She had also retrieved a long woolen cloak from somewhere beside her and now wore it wrapped tightly around her shoulders.
"Hail, Eliza Jane! This is the captain of the Endurance. How many survivors are there aboard your ship?"
The woman tried twice to answer but her throat was too dry, the ships were too far apart, and the rasped words were snatched away on the breeze. In the end, she held up a hand showing only one finger, then pointed that finger to her chest.
"Are you saying you are alone on the ship?"
The girl replied with an exaggerated nod and Dante blew out a breath before raising the trumpet to his mouth again. "How long?"
The girl looked down and he could see her staring at her fingers, counting them off slowly as she uncurled them from a fist. When she held her hand up again, there were four slender fingers showing.
Gabriel rubbed the scabbing off his wounded eye and forced it to stay open. "Where is the rest of the crew? Where is the Captain?"
The girl's arm came down and paused halfway to point into the belly of the main deck. Her fingers curled into a tight fist again as she shook her head.
Dante felt the hairs on his neck prickle again, for if he was interpreting her correctly, she was telling him that she was alone on the deck of a plague ship which was littered with the bodies of the dead.
"Bring us closer, Stubs. Close enough to hear her speak."
"But Cap'n—"
Gabriel's cold, hard gaze cut the protest short. "That was an order Master MacLeish, not a point of debate."
Stubs' eyes widened briefly out of their creases at the use of his proper name—a warning as clear and loud as a cannon shot.
"Aye, Cap'n. Bringin' her closer."
He relayed the order to the helmsman, Rowly, who took it with a mutinous set to his mouth. He hesitated long enough that Gabriel turned his head and glared a further threat, one that came with a hand going not-so-casually to the stock of the pistol he wore at his waist.
~~
By the time the Endurance had maneuvered into position, the entire crew was on deck. Gabriel had taken the precaution of ordering men to stand by the rails with long grappling poles... not to pull the ships closer, but to keep them purposefully apart. He had also ordered sharpshooters up into the yards in case the woman and the flag had both been used as a ruse to get the galleon close enough for
English pirates to swarm over the side and board the Endurance.
The crew watched in absolute silence as Dante stepped up to the rail again and hailed the Eliza Jane through his cupped hands.
The girl rose from the rubble and looked solemnly out over the gap between the two ships. This close, her features were clearer and another low murmur rippled through the crew with opinions divided between beautiful sirens and ghostly apparitions of angels.
"Can you tell us what happened?" Dante asked.
The girl cleared enough of the rust out of her voice to make herself heard. "We landed in Fox Town a fortnight ago to take on fresh water. One of the men came down with a fever. It took only a few days to infect the rest of the crew."
Like a school of fish veering from danger, the crewmen who had been crowding the rails backed away, putting more space between themselves and any foul vapors the ship might be expelling.
"And you?" Dante asked. "Were you infected?"
The woman bowed her head a moment and shook it. "No. I was spared. God only knows why, but I had neither the fever nor the spots."
"The pox," Stubs said as he crossed himself. "There was a rumor of an outbreak on one o' the islands."
"Why would it strike down the entire crew and not the girl?"
"Like she said, only God... or the Devil... knows for sure."
They both looked back toward the Eliza Jane.
"You say you have been four days on your own?"
"On deck, yes. I was locked away in my cabin for several days before that, so I cannot be sure exactly how long I have been alone."
"What have you done for food and water?"
"I have caught a little rain in the sails. But I have not dared to go back below."
Gabriel beckoned his cabin boy, Eduardo. "Fetch a skin of fresh water, another of wine, and a pouch of wheatcakes, cheese and cold meat. And be quick about it."
The boy scampered off and Gabriel expelled a long slow breath. He could not simply bring the woman on board. The pox was a virulent and deadly disease and no one knew how it spread. Some said by touch, others said by rats, others suggested that merely breathing the same air was fatal. The fact the girl had been spared was a puzzlement but did not mean she was free of the disease.
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