On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers Read Free Book Online Page A

pulled out of his pocket looked like a small whisk broom.
    â€œThis ox-tail,” said Hurwood in what must have been his auditorium-addressing voice, “has been treated to become a focus of the attention of the being you call Mate Care-For. If he was a grander thing he could pay attention to all of us at once, but as it is he can only thoroughly look after a couple of people at a time. In this recent scuffle he preserved myself and Mr. Friend, and since the danger to us is passed, I’ll let you occupy his attention.” He tucked the bristly object down the front of Davies’ lime green shirt. “Let’s see…” Again he went fumbling through his pockets, “and here,” he said, producing a little cloth bag of something, “is a
drogue
that makes the bowels behave properly. Again, you are in more danger in that regard than I am, at the moment—though I’ll want it back.” He took Davies’ hat off and set it on the deck, laid the little bag on top of the pirate’s head and then replaced the hat. “That’s that,” he said, standing up. “Let’s waste no more time. Get the ones who are leaving into the boat, and then let’s go.”
    The
Carmichael’
s new owners swung the ship’s boat out on the davit cranes and lowered it with a careless splash to the water on the starboard side, and they flung a net of shrouds and ratlinesafter it for the people to climb down on. At the next swell the boat was slammed up against the hull of the ship and took on a lot of water, but Davies tiredly called out some orders and the ship shifted ponderously around until the wind was on the starboard quarter and the rolling abated.
    Davies got to his feet, wincing irritably. “All off that’s getting off,” he growled.
    Wistfully Chandagnac watched the
Carmichael’
s original crew shambling toward the starboard rail, several of them supporting wounded companions. Beth Hurwood, a black hood pulled over her coppery ringlets, started forward, then turned and called, “Father! Join me in the boat.”
    Hurwood looked up, and produced a laugh like the last clatter of unoiled machinery. “Wouldn’t they be glad of my company! Half of these slain owe their present state to my pistol collection and my hand. No, my dear, I stay aboard this ship—and so do you.” His statement had rocked her, but she turned and started toward the rail.
    â€œStop her,” snapped Hurwood impatiently.
    Davies nodded, and several grinning pirates stepped in front of her.
    Hurwood permitted himself another laugh, but it turned into a retching cough. “Let’s go,” he croaked. Chandagnac happened to glance at Leo Friend, and he was almost glad that he’d been forced to stay aboard, for the physician was blinking rapidly, and his prominent lips were wet, and his eyes were on Beth Hurwood.
    â€œRight,” said Davies. “Here, you clods, get these corpses over the side—mind you don’t pitch ’em into the boat—and then let’s be off.” He looked upward. “How is it, rich?”
    â€œCan’t jibe,” came a shout from aloft, “with the spanker carried away. But this wind and sea are good enough to tack her in, I think, if we get all the lads up on the footropes.”
    â€œGood. Elliot, you take a couple of men and pilot the sloop back home.”
    â€œRight, Phil.”
    Beth Hurwood turned her gaze from her father to Leo Friend, who smiled and stepped forward—Chandagnac noticed for the first time that the fat physician’s finery included a ludicrous pair of red-heeled shoes with “windmill wing” ties—and proffered an arm like an ornate, overstuffed bolster, but Beth crossed to Chandagnac and stood beside him, not speaking. Her lips were pressed together as firmly as before, but Chandagnac glimpsed the shine of tears in her eyes a moment before she impatiently