"Didn't you tell me this afternoon, sir, that I could leave with all my men who cared to go with me?"
"I did. Captain. I did indeed."
"Thank you." They were both being excessively polite. "Mister Forbes, will you haul that tender up a bit further, so that milady won't have to get her feet in the water?"
He turned, and gallantly offered his hand to Maisie. She wetted her lips, gave an absent nod, put a hand into his; but all the while she was looking at van Bramm.
They started for the boat.
"I said your vessel and all your men," said Everard van Bramm.
Adam stopped. Maisie stopped. Resolved Forbes was still staring at the pistol Cark held.
What van Bramm said next was so appallingly brutal that for a moment they found it hard to credit their ears. Yet the man was serious.
"I must be paid something. Leave the lady. I'll take her."
Had this been accompanied by a leer, had van Bramm moved toward Maisie or even extended a hand in that direction, doubtless Adam would have been unable to control himself. As it was, Adam did very well indeed. He even managed to produce a smile.
"Indeed, Captain, you do me a great favor in taking her oft my hands. And may I wish you—happy nights?"
He took a step toward van Bramm, who tensed. Adam reached for his hat, like van Bramm's a broad-brimmed one. He swept it oft' his head. Most elaborately he made a leg, bowing low.
The hat swished through the air a good eighteen inches from the muzzle of the pistol, but so great was its force that its wind blew the powder clear out of the priming pan.
Van Bramm cursed, stepping back.
From the bottom of his bow Adam jumped.
Van Bramm pulled the trigger. He got a spark but there was no flash. He started to slam the side of the pistol with his left hand, meaning to jar powder up through the touch-hole; but by that time Adam was upon him.
The other pistol, the one Cark held, exploded stunningly. It was like a cannon shot. The jumble of sound from the marketplace instantly ceased.
Cark had been wild, seemingly. Adam never did learn where that ball went—nobody ever did—but he knew that Resolved Forbes wasn't hit, for though he couldn't spare a glance he could hear the scuffle of a struggle back there.
He punched the pistol and the hand that held it, not van Bramm's face. He treated the pistol like a living thing, to which the pirate himself was no more than an accessory. Van Bramm kept stepping backward, swinging the gun away from Adam's rush. He stumbled. Adam's fist caught his right wrist, stinging it. Van Bramm dropped the pistol.
The pirate then didn't punch, didn't back up any further. He simply threw both arms around Adam, fighting as a bear would. He was immense and very strong. Adam got a short hard left punch into the belly, but the man didn't even grunt. Then the arms tightened, and Adam could no longer move. From the first touch of that embrace he became light-headed. Soon the blood thundered and banged in his temples, and his eyeballs, furiously hot, seemed to be striving to spring out of his head. Small warm greasy blobs of sweat meandered down his face, down his neck, tickling him.
Yes, like drowning. Soon he would have to let go the breath he held. And he'd never get another.
It was no gallant way to die, he thought—just standing there on a dark beach, not being able to move, not making a sound, even a moan, simply being hugged to death.
Then van Bramm slipped and fell. Adam had enough strength left to push against him, so that he fell backward, Adam being on top.
There was another great stroke of luck—the pirate's head hit a rock. The steely arms were loosened a moment—not much, not enough to permit Adam Long to get his fists free, but he was at least able to hunch one shoulder up smartly, catching van Bramm under the chin, slamming the man's head back against that rock again and again. He grunted noisily each time he hoisted that shoulder. Somehow it gave him relief to grunt.
Everard van Bramm never made a sound.
The arms, slippery with sweat, flopped off right and left like a couple of seals from a slimy rock. Adam wriggled away, got to his knees, to his feet, swaying. He was afraid of a trick, so he stepped away. But van Bramm was not playing 'possum. A moment later, shaking his head to clear it, Adam rushed at him again and kicked him three times in the jaw. The head was slammed back against the rock each time. Van Bramm did not stir.
Not until then did Adam look around.
All this had happened fast. Through the echoes of the pistol shot, and through the tinny clatter of rain, he could hear the shouts of men who were running down from the marketplace.
He sprang to Maisie's side. She stood as though she'd never moved, too startled even to be frightened. While he bustled her into the boat and shoved her toward the sternsheets, she moved like a sleepwalker. He clambered in after her.
Resolved Forbes rose from a dark figure on the beach, and he was wiping his knife on his breeches.
"Kill him?" Adam asked.
Forbes shrugged.
"Might have."
He seized one pair of oars. Adam had the others, the stern oars. They pushed out.
Suddenly the beach was black with men. There was a splatter of musketry, but the distance was too great. Boats were put out, meaning pursuit, but they didn't get far. There were still oars in those boats, but the thole pins had all been removed: the Goodwill's mate, on order of the distrustful skipper, had seen to this.
"And right—right before all those—beasts!" Maisie whispered.
She started to weep.
Some of those on the beach were running out to the point, to give the alarm at the fort.
Goodwill to Men was in fact under way when they reached her. Jeth Gardner had sacrificed both anchors, but the vessel was moving.
They were through the pass before the guns of the fort finally spoke.
The first three shots were wild, each one worse than the previous one. Evidently they couldn't see the splashes from up there in the fort.
The fourth slished the air just forward of the bowsprit, uncomfortably close.
The fifth actually hit. It screeched along the deck amidships, virtually caroming off that deck, showering splinters everywhere. It missed by a few feet the clutter of barrels the pirates had loaded aboard the schooner and hadn't got around to stowing below. It tore a hole in the larboard gunwale and plopped into the sea.
"If I was one of them Roman Catholics, I'd be crossing myself licketty-split right now," said Jeth Gardner to Captain Long. "That was hot shot. Tell by the smell. They know what's in them barrels."
"What is?"
"Gunpowder."
Half an hour later they had the sea to themselves, and the rain had ceased, and the moon began to ooze over the horizon.
Only a few minutes earlier, when it got between his legs and all but threw him flat, Adam had suddenly remembered that he was wearing a sword. It made him feel a fool, having plumb forgotten it in the first fracas he'd been in since strapping it on.
There was a subdued sobbing in the captain's cabin below.
"You all right, Jeth?"
"Sure I'm all right. You could cut the other leg off me and I'd still be all right."
"I believe you would, Jeth. I truly do. Well, take the deck." He nodded toward the hatch cover. "Reckon I'm needed down there."
PART FIVE. The Shortest Way Home
The sea slooshing along the side on its way toward the hurly-burly of the wake, the doleful clunk of blocks on deck, the squeal of lines and squeak of timbers—these noises, to which Adam awoke, may not be dear to a sailor's heart, since he takes them for granted; but their absence can make him mighty uneasy. Adam heard them before he opened his eyes to gaze with gratification at the sun's rays reflected from off the sea, shimmering and wavering above him.