Anna had already thought that to allow herself to drown in the small amount of water that had accumulated in the bottom of the canoe might be preferable to dying of thirst and exposure in the open air, but the idea of deliberately going over the side with him made her shudder.
“If we must,” she whispered. Anything was better than facing another blistering day.
Julian said nothing for a moment. Then, as her meaning penetrated, he stiffened.
“Good God, no,” he told her, sounding angry. “I don’t mean that we should give up and throw ourselves over the side to die. I mean that we should somehow get into the water, hold on to the outrigger, and let the water loosen the ropes. It might take some time, but there’s a chance it could work.”
Only a slight chance. Anna knew that as well as if he had said the words. Still, any chance was better than no chance at all.
“Wait—the emeralds!” she said, as the memory of the precious stones he had risked so much for surfaced. “The Queen’s emeralds! I’m wearing the necklace and stomacher, and the rest of them are in their pouch in the bottom of the canoe. Oh, Julian, your parents’ marriage lines must be in there, too. They’ll be soaked—ruined!”
“To hell with the bloody marriage lines—and the emeralds too! Do you think I care about them now? What I care about is you.” Julian’s voice was fierce. Despite their situation, Anna felt a little glow of happiness at his words. “How on earth did you come to be wearing them? I thought they burned with the house.”
“Raja Singha had them. He put them on me so that I could take them with me as a gift to the goddess when I died.” Despair reduced her last words to no more than a husky whisper.
“Damn the bloody animal to hell, you’re not going to die! We’re not going to die! You’re not to give up, do you hear? I told you, we’ll tip the canoe and let the water loosen the ropes. It will work, Anna.” There was grim determination in his voice.
“What do we need to do?” she asked, feeling another tiny flicker of hope. Julian sounded so sure.…
“With the outrigger, the canoe won’t tip. So what we’re going to have to do is somehow tip ourselves over the side. I’ll try to catch hold of the pontoon as we fall. Then all we have to do is wait until the water loosens the knots.”
If it ever did. Anna finished the sentence silently.
Julian said nothing more for a moment. Then, “I’m going to turn over so that I’m lying on my stomach. It’s probably going to hurt you when I move, and for that I’m sorry. But …”
“It doesn’t matter,” Anna said. Unspoken between them was the thought that, if he was unable to catch hold of some part of the pontoon as they fell, they would sink beneath the surface. Bound as they were, if that happened, they would almost certainly drown.
“All right. I’m going to try to get my hands beneath me and push up. When I go up, you throw your weight as hard as you can to the right. I will, too. Maybe it will be enough to pitch us out of the canoe.” He hesitated, then, to her amazement, Anna thought she detected the tiniest touch of humor in his voice. “And, Anna, be sure to take a deep breath, hear?”
“I hear.”
“Let’s go, then.”
As Julian had warned her, the ropes cut unbearably into her sunburned skin as he twisted and squirmed onto his stomach. But she bit her lip, refusing to make so much as a single sound. He was hurting too, she knew. Like herself, he must be sunburned, and the ropes must be sawing into his skin like knives. And he had been terribly cut. How the seawater in the bottom of the canoe must burn in those cuts!
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Throw yourself to the right!” With that as a warning, he heaved himself violently up. Anna felt him buck beneath her and threw herself to the right as hard as she could. Her body scraped painfully against the side of the canoe—and then, miracle of miracles, they were going over the side.
Only to sink just as abruptly under the surface. Just as Anna was sure they would sink forever, and end by drowning, their downward progress halted with a jerk. She felt the emeralds around her waist loosen, watched with a curious detachment as the stomacher floated in lazy spirals downward to join the velvet pouch, and then she was being pulled up again, toward the surface, until at last her head broke through the water and she was gasping for air.
“Anna, we did it!” He was jubilant. Anna, hanging like a papoose from his back, smiled, only to wince as the movement caused her parched lips to stretch painfully.
“We did, didn’t we?” She rested against him, trying not to notice that, with her weight against them, the ropes were cutting more painfully than ever into her tender skin. She must be bleeding.…
But at least now they had a chance.
As the sun climbed the sky Anna’s optimism faded. The ropes felt no tighter, but, although Julian doggedly tried to work his arms free, he seemed no closer to succeeding. Anna’s thirst was like a living thing inside her, eating her up. It was all she could do to resist the temptation to gulp seawater. That, she knew, was the worst thing she could do. The salt in it would literally dry her up.
With her body safe beneath the water, only her face caught the sun. She supposed she should be thankful for that, but as her eyes swelled shut and her lips puffed and split she could not summon much gratitude.
As hour upon blistering hour crawled by, she again found herself almost wishing to die.
And then, as she squirmed about in an effort to ease the cutting pressure of the ropes, she felt something so unexpected that she had to squirm again to make sure.
“Julian,” she said in the hoarse croak that was all she could manage now. “The ropes—I think they’re slipping! My leg is free!”
She felt him kick, felt him make the same discovery—and then one of his legs was free, too. With the resultant loosening of the ropes, it was not long before Julian managed to free them both entirely. Gasping, Anna turned toward him, no longer able to smile but catching his hand and giving it a happy squeeze. With her broiled skin, even a hug would have been too painful.
For the first time in two days he got a good look at her.
“Your poor face,” he breathed, his eyes darkening as he took in the evidence of what she had suffered. Then his hand came up to gently touch her cheek. “I love you, Anna.”
“I love you too,” she managed painfully.
His eyes shifted to the emerald necklace, which was all that remained of the stones that had haunted him all his life.
“Let’s get these bloody things off you,” he said, his fingers gentle against her damaged skin as he worked the clasp. When the necklace fell free, he caught it in one hand and tossed it into the canoe as if it were no more than a handful of pebbles.
“We’re going to be all right,” he told her with fierce determination. “You’ll see.”
And then he helped her back into the boat, where she tried to sit up but ended by lying shivering on the bottom, while he protected her from the rising sun as best he could with his own body, and used the sail to bring the little craft about, heading for land.
The question was, would they make it in time? They had drifted with the current for nigh on two days. Without fresh water, they had another forty-eight hours at best. Anna especially was already showing signs of becoming delirious from dehydration.
Julian gritted his teeth and grimly battled the delirium that threatened him as well. If he succumbed, they would both die. Her life depended upon his strength. And he could not, would not, let her die.
Toward late afternoon the wind began to pick up. Dark clouds blew up on the horizon, and the canoe, under sail, fairly skimmed over the waves. Julian, watching, prayed as he had never prayed in his life.
His prayers were answered. Even as he tilted his face to the sky he felt a spattering of rain.
“Anna! Anna, wake up!” Holding the sail with one hand, he leaned down to shake her, wincing at the necessity of taking hold of her sun-broiled skin. As fair as she was, she had burned much more severely than he had. After a moment she roused, looking at him as if she did not quite know who he was.
She had been without water for two and a half days.
“It’s raining!” he told her urgently even as the heavens opened and an icy deluge descended upon them. “Sweetheart, it’s raining!”
When she still didn’t seem to comprehend, he lashed the sail, cupped his hands, and ladled fresh water into and over her until at last he was satisfied that she had had enough for the moment.
Then he freed the sail, and, making use of the wind and the rushing current and every bit of sea lore he had ever learned, he headed their craft for land.
When at last he heard the roar of breakers and saw the white foam of waves crashing against the shore, he felt tears fill his eyes.
They had made it! He gave thanks to the God that he had not really, until now, believed in.
Then he lowered the sail and allowed the canoe to catch the waves. Riding on the crest of one, the craft traveled swiftly until its bottom gently skidded against sand. Then Julian, with his last bit of strength, scooped Anna up from the bottom of the canoe and gently carried her ashore.
The emeralds lay forgotten in the bottom of the canoe as tears of thanksgiving mingled with raindrops to wet his face.
Epilogue
A
little more than a year later, Lord and Lady Ridley stood arm in arm on the terrace at Gordon Hall. It was early March, but the weather had continued unseasonably warm for the past few days. On the manicured path below them a little blond girl skipped and sang with her new playmate, the gatekeeper’s son. The child was dressed warmly in a velvet pelisse and bonnet, but the late-afternoon sun made the garments almost unnecessary. The temperature was far closer to spring than winter.
Anna watched her daughter’s antics with a smile. Really, it was good to see Chelsea so happy and well-adjusted at last. When they had found her after their nightmare experience, she had been dressed as a coolie child and her hair had been crudely dyed a muddy brown. Hidden away with Ruby in the heart of Kirti’s village with the ayah and her entire clan standing guard, the little girl had been almost catatonic with fright. Seeing her mother, Chelsea had burst into noisy tears and clung as if she would never let go. Despite the pain of her injuries, Anna had clung to Chelsea, too. Each had feared never to see the other again.
Jim had been equally overjoyed to see Julian. He had spat and declared that he had known his Julie was too tough to kill, even as he had turned away to wipe what he called “those bloody cinders” from his eyes. It seemed that he had been, as Julian had instructed, keeping an eye on Graham, when Graham had suddenly turned back halfway alone the road to Colombo. Jim, caught by surprise, had lost his quarry, only to discover him again hours later when he had given up the search and headed home to Srinagar. Graham had been in the act of dousing the rear veranda with fuel—and had, when surprised in the act, dealt Jim such a ferocious blow with a shovel that Jim had been unconscious for most of the night. When he had recovered his senses and made his way back to the house from the jungle where he had been dragged and left, it had been to find nothing left but a burned-out, still-smoking shell.
What had become of Julian and the rest, he could only imagine. And what he had imagined had not been pretty.
Julian had whisked them all out of Ceylon so quickly that there had barely been time for Anna to say good-bye to anyone. She did manage a word for Charles, who was shocked by the news of what had happened to them. He was not, however, altogether surprised when Anna told him of her intention to marry Julian. He said he had seen it coming for some time, and was resigned to her loss. He managed to wish her happy before Julian pulled her to the waiting carriage by main force, but there was no time for anything more. Julian was determined to get them to Colombo, and from there aboard a ship to England, with the smallest possible delay. Almost losing Anna had frightened him, and he was determined not to risk such a thing again.
That she was even permitted to take leave of Charles was only because Julian felt they should warn the English community of the killers in their midst and apprise Charles or what had befallen Srinagar. Charles, suitably horrified, had promised to do what he could to round up those responsible and to alert the other colonists to the danger. In the last communication that they had had from him, he had reported that Raja Singna had vanished. They continued to look for him, but Anna, who was thoroughly familiar with both Sinhalese justice and Raja Singha, doubted he would ever be found.
Graham had been buried in the plot beside Paul, Anna took some comfort from the notion of the two brothers facing eternity together.
Julian, having recovered somewhat from his ordeal, had determined not to relinquish his birthright if there was any chance he might be able to claim it. After several weeks of racking his brain, he had at last remembered the name of the vicar who had signed his parents’ marriage lines. After that, the task had been easy. The vicar was retired, but his name was still on church records, and the marriage itself was still recorded on the parish registry. With the help of Graham’s erstwhile solicitor, Julian was duly confirmed as Lord Ridley.
The visit to the solicitor had another consequence as well: Julian at last discovered who had sent the note about the proof being in the emeralds. It seemed that the solicitor’s father had been old Lord Ridley’s solicitor. It was this gentleman whom Anna and Paul had seen arguing with the old lord in the library all those years ago. The disagreement had been over Lord Ridley’s wanting to set aside an early, secret marriage that had produced a son; a son who, if allowed to remain legitimate, would be his heir instead of his dearly beloved Graham. The solicitor, disapproving, had refused to cooperate. It was he who, having seen where Lord Ridley kept the proof of his first son’s legitimacy, sent the note to Julian. He said that he couldn’t keep quiet any longer after the old lord’s death. His conscience would not let him rest. Julian had thanked the man and offered him monetary recompense for his trouble. The old gentleman had told him that it was reward enough merely to see justice done.