The island was little more than a sand bar, a
few score miles around, but it bore on its back
trees and thick grasses, and birds could be heard
over the sea air. There was water, then, and
enough for us all.
Leaving the bos'n at the helm, the first mate and
I, along with some dozen of our crew, put out in
dinghies and made for the shore. The men rowed
with vigor, eager to run aground and drink their
fill of whatever water they might find.
Coming ashore, we beached the boats and
made our way inland, cutting our way through the
thick growth, reaching at last an inland lake. The
first mate was the first to test the water, and
through his broken teeth pronounced the water
the finest he'd ever tasted. I let the men drink their
full, and then instructed them to bring the casks
from the dingy and to fill them to capacity. The
mate and I then led a small party further inland
to forage for food.
We had gone perhaps a dozen strides when one
of the crewmen remarked on broken branches
amongst the undergrowth. We at first thought this
the work of a large boar, perhaps, or some other
rough beast, but further on the mate caught sight
of foot-prints which, though small in dimension,
bore the unmistakable sign of human passage.
We proceeded more warily then, making our
way inland with watchful eyes, every hand at the
pommel of a cutlass. We heard indistinct sounds
as we progressed, calls from the trees, but they
were too faint and too far away to be identified.
We reasoned that the inhabitants of the island
had become aware of our presence, and were
warning their kin of our approach.
After a slow hour's march through the trees, we
came at last to a wide clearing, where a waterfall
crashed gently down the side of a high rock. Gath
ered in the clearing, around the base of the rock,
stood four and twenty children, of all sizes and
ages, both male and female. They were clad in
clean clothes, though some a bit ragged and torn,
and from their complexions and attires seemed to
represent each of the sea-faring races of the globe.
The children were calm, almost serene, and
looked upon our party with great interest.
The oldest of the children, a girl dressed in the
manner of a young English lady, stepped forward
from the mass and addressed our group.
Gentles, she said, have you come to take us
home?
She spoke in the King's own English, did this
strip of a girl, and looked upon us with eyes as
open and honest as any I might ever have seen.
I answered her as best I could, saying that we
had not come with those intentions, but that if she
and her company needed transport to their homes
my ship was at their disposal.
The girl nodded, as if she had expected no other
answer, and then turned to look towards her
fellows. Without a word between them, the children
drew themselves into a single line, and then the
English girl indicated that they were ready to follow.
Struck dumb, I signaled my men to turn and re
treat for the shore, and then with the mate beside
me stood and watched as my crew led the strange
band of children out of the clearing and into the
trees. As they passed, a number of the children
turned to us and offered their thanks, and I was
amazed to hear pass their lips every language
with which I have become accustomed, and some
many more besides. Only a fraction of those chil
dren spoke a word of English, it transpired, and
on the main spoke no other language than their
own. After careful count, the crew and I counted
some dozen different languages, some good por
tion of which not one of my men could identify.
After replenishing our provisions, we raised an
chor and set sail, this time for the coast of Spain.
There is a nunnery there with which I have had
some dealings, having aided them on one or two
occasions when members of that order took to sea
and met with misfortune. I knew they would take
the children in and, should they be unable to find
their own homes, at least find suitable accommo
dations for them.
In the course of our weeks in travel to the
continent, I had occasion to question the older girl,
and others with whom I could communicate, about
their circumstance. From what I was able to
gather, each of the children had, at different times,
been the victim of some catastrophe at sea, either
through shipwreck, or fire, or intercession of
brigands. Somehow, miraculously, each of the
children survived, and found their way onto the
island upon which we had discovered them. From
their accounts, the lost ships in question
numbered at least a half-dozen, perhaps three
times that many. Furthermore, in those
infrequently travelled waters, it seems hardly
likely that ships from so many ports of call would
meet with calamity within swimming distance of
a single speck of an island.
When I questioned the children about this, they
could only say that they had been taken some
where peaceful and safe, and then we had
arrived to rescue them. There was the intimation
that there was some agency at work here, as
though someone had transported them to that is
land for safe keeping, or else to some other locale,
and then to the island where we would find them.
Where this other locale might be, in that empty
and barren stretch of water, and whom the agents
of their rescue might be, I could not say.
The bos'n, for his part, was sure it bore all the
marks of the divine hand, and that angels them
selves had rescued the children. Others of the
crew spoke of Fiddler's Green, and other mythical
places of seamen's repose. For myself, I have no
such answer, no such certainty. As regards the
lost children found ashore, I have only questions.
After reaching the waters of Spain, we sailed
along the coast until we came to the nunnery.
Then, putting to shore, we entrusted the children
to the care of the sisters. Thereafter, our provisions
stocked and our arms ready for action, we put
again to sea, going north into the Channel, where
we encountered an English ship heavy laden with
goods, bound for Dover from the New World. She
was at the end of a long journey, and we aided
her in lightening her cargo. From there to Majorca,
and then back to the high seas.
We must not have been far a'course, brother,
the sister observed,
for in just that season I my
self was steering my Rover through the Straits of
Hercules, and into the wine-dark waters of the
Middle Sea. My tale, too, involves members of a
holy order, though in my case they were less char
itable than the objects of charity themselves.
Chapter 4
IN WHICH JANE RELATES HER ADVENTURES OF LATE
We had been sailing long weeks since last we
had sighted another ship,
the sister continued,
and my men grew hungry for some business to
tend to. We came at last upon a galley ship,
Spanish by her colours, lying heavy in the water,
bound for the northern coast of Africa. There was
a second ship close to, which had the look of a
French vessel but flew no King's flag. The
second ship was secured by grappling hooks to
the first, and as we watched a boarding party
swarmed from the second onto the decks of the
first. They were, we had no doubt, freebooters,
anxious for whatever booty they might take from
the galley.
Though we had no especial love for either the
crew of the Spanish ship nor of the Freebooter,
there is nonetheless something in the breast of
man which stirs on seeing a crime in progress,
the victim helpless, so we threw our lot in with
the underdogs. Coming 'round the two ships, we
sailed close to the Freebooter, and, grappling our
own ship to her, made ready to send across
boarders. The crew, ranged through the rigging,
cutlass and pistols in hand, watched for my sig
nal which, when the time was right, I issued.
Then, leaving only a skeletal crew aboard the
Rover, we swarmed over the deck of the Free
booter, dispatching what little resistance we
met, and then like garden frogs leaping from one
stone to the next moved on to the Spanish galley.
Using the freebooters' own rigging, we leapt to
the deck of the galley, and with wild eyes met
the scoundrels like a hurricane's gale. They, at
first taken completely unawares, were slow to
retaliate, but soon regrouped, and then tried to
press their advantage, hacking their way
through my crew, trying to drive us from the gal
ley's deck. Their plan was an ill-considered one,
however, for in trying to drive us from their prey
they succeeded only in forcing a number of my
crew back onto the Freebooter herself, where
they were quite capable of repelling the
scoundrels' attacks.
I myself, my Mate at my side, drove the attack
onto the Main Deck, felling innumerous freeboot
ers as we went, until at last the Pirate Captain
and myself stood face to face, our gored blades
in hand. He smiled a gap-toothed smile at me,
and then offered some greeting or challenge in
his mongrel tongue, which I could not fathom the
meaning of, bowed his head, ever so slightly,
and then came en garde. I lifted my cutlass be
fore me, weaving its point in pirouettes in the air,
and parried his every thrust, driving his own
blade with a wrench away from its intended tar
get. Long minutes we dueled thus, until at last
he began to waver, and dropped his guard, and
I made the killing thrust. He fell, his face a mask
of surprise, and lay a blooded heap upon the
deck.
The galley was taking on water now, the holes
burst in its hull by the Freebooter's cannon
below the waterline. Once the last of the Free
booter crew was dispatched, I urged my own
men to go below, free what galley slaves they
could, and tend to whatever booty might be sal
vaged from the ship. I myself made my way
across the deck to the Captain's Cabin, my Mate
still at my side.
The door to the Cabin had been burst open, and
the Freebooters already inside, having only come
back out into the open air when our Rovers' crew
had come aboard. Inside, in the well-appointed
cabin, I found a riot of corpses, littering the thick
Persian rug. Each was lain in an aspect of distress,
as though they had struggled against their death,
and met a grisly demise for their trouble. One or
two were women, high born from the looks of their
clothing and the jewelry the scoundrels had yet to
rip from their cut throats, and there were also three
men dressed in the black robes of the followers of
some Holy Order. They lay close by one another,
each more gashed and mutilated than the last, and
their cold faces bore expressions of such determi
nation, the likes of which I have rarely seen. I could
not place their Order, none carrying any of the dis
tinguishing signs of the Benedictine or Dominican,
though I did note that in the place of the expected
Cruciform each wore a medallion showing a four
armed spiral, encircled with a band. These
medallions, of silver, were hung on heavy cords
about each's neck, and one of them had seemed to
grasp the emblem at the moment of his death, so
rigid still was his hold upon it.
The third of the mendicants, lying farthest from
the door, held clutched in his cold fingers a book, a
thick tome bound in leather which, when we pulled
it free of his grasp and inspected the contents, was
comprised of pages of unimaginable age covered in
dozens of different hands, in a dozen different
tongues. Emblazoned on the cover was the same
banded spiral, here engraved on a glittering silver
shield. This Book, no doubt a text of holy writ, or
else the history of their Order, I entrusted to the
care of the Mate, and then turned to the business
of inspecting the remainder of the Cabin.
When the surviving slaves had been trans
ferred across the deck of the listing Freebooter,
and were safely on the Rover, I gave the order to
abandon ship, first the galley and then the Free
booter, and with the crew complete on the deck of
the Rover, had them cut loose the grappling lines,
and we were away. As we sailed on towards the
north coast of Africa, there to discharge our pas
senger slaves, we watched as the two ships,
locked in a deadly embrace, sank slowly beneath
the calm waves, and disappear eventually en
tirely from sight.