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

blotted them on her cuff.
    â€œShall I take you below?” Chandagnac asked quietly.
    She shook her head. “I couldn’t bear it.”
    Davies glanced at the two of them. “You’ve got no duties yet,” he told Chandagnac. “Take her up forward somewhere out of the way. You might get her some rum while you’re at it.”
    â€œI hardly think—” Chandagnac began stiffly, but Elizabeth interrupted.
    â€œFor God’s sake, yes,” she said.
    Davies grinned at Chandagnac and waved them forward.
    A FEW minutes later they were on the forecastle deck by the starboard anchor, shielded from the wind by the taut mainsail behind them. Chandagnac had gone to the galley and filled two ceramic cups with rum, and he handed one to her.
    Line began buzzing through the blocks again and the spars creaked as the sails, trimmed and full once more, were turned to best catch the steady east wind; the ship came around in a slow arc to the north, and then to the northeast, and Chandagnac watched the crowded lifeboat recede and finally disappear behind the high stern. The sloop, still on the port side, waspacing the
Vociferous Carmichael.
From where he now leaned against the rail sipping warm rum, Chandagnac could see the mast and sails of the smaller vessel, and as their speed picked up and the sloop edged away from the ship to give it room he was able to see its long, low hull too. He shook his head slightly, still incredulous.
    â€œWell, we could both be worse off,” he remarked quietly to Beth, trying to convince himself as much as her. “I’m apparently forgiven for my attack on their chief, and you’re protected from these creatures by…your father’s position among them.” Below him to his left, one of the pirates was walking up and down the waist, whistling and sprinkling sand from a bucket onto the many splashes and puddles of blood on the deck. Chandagnac looked away and went on. “And when we do manage to get out of this situation, all the sailors in the boat can testify that you and I stayed unwillingly.” He was proud of the steadiness of his voice, and he gulped some more rum to still the post-crisis trembling he could feel beginning in his hands and legs.
    â€œMy God,” Beth said dazedly, “all I can hope for is that he
dies
out here. He can’t ever go back. They wouldn’t even put him in a mad-house—they’d
hang
him.”
    Chandagnac nodded, reflecting that even hanging was less than what her father deserved.
    â€œI should have seen his madness coming on,” she said. “I
did
know he’d become…eccentric, taking up researches that… seemed a little crazy…but I never dreamt he’d go wild, like a rabid dog, and start
killing
people.”
    Chandagnac thought of a sailor he’d seen killed at the swivel gun, and the one Hurwood had shot in the face a moment later. “It wasn’t done in any kind of…frenzy, Miss Hurwood,” he said shortly. “It was cold—methodical—like a cook squashing ants on a kitchen counter, one by one, and then wiping his hands andturning to the next job. And the fat boy was at the other end of the ship, matching him shot for shot.”
    â€œFriend, yes,” she said. “There’s always been something hateful about him. No doubt he led my poor father into this scheme, whatever it is. But my father
is
insane. Listen, just before we left England last month, he stayed out all night, and came back all muddy and hatless in the morning, clutching a smelly little wooden box. He wouldn’t say what it was—when I asked him, he just stared at me as if he’d never seen me before—but he hasn’t been without it since. It’s in his cabin now, and I swear he whispers to it late at night. And my God, you read his book! He used to be brilliant! What explanation besides lunacy could explain the author of
The Vindication of