The beast was amazingly fast. At any other time its retreat would have been ludicrous; it was heavy, clumsy, yet it could cover the ground.
It was within a few feet of the water's edge when Adam stooped and caught it under the plastron, or lower shell. He heaved, all his muscles shrieking in pain.
Jaws that could nip a man's hand off clacked loudly. A flipper struck Adam's wrists: it was like being hit with a sack of wet sand. He dropped the turtle, which immediately started for the water again. Adam got to it barely in time. He caught it further forward this try, about in the middle. He lifted.
Thrashing, the turtle tipped up. Its weight forced Adam to his knees. He got a better grip. His temples were pounding, ears and eyeballs, too. He drew a deep breath. If he didn't make it this time he was dead. He rose, inch by slow inch, while blackness, roaring, swam toward him.
The turtle went over. Adam dropped to the sand.
After a while, when some of his breath was back, Adam looked sideways. The turtle, like Adam himself, was on its back, all its flippers going furiously, while the tip of its bright shiny black nose, upside-down, was no more than inches from the edge of the sea. It couldn't cover those inches: it was helpless. There was rage in its breathing, a deep tubular sound. Grotesquely, all the time it grinned. It glared at Adam, who watched it for a long while.
At last the flippers ceased to work, though the green-sometimes-red eyes were lit still with unabated fury.
"I'm sorry," Adam said in a quiet voice, meaning it. "I reckon it had to be you or me and naturally I'd rather it was you."
The turtle glared.
Adam was thinking of that blood. He sat up, and slowly took off his belt. With his thumb he felt the tolerably sharp tip of the buckle's tongue.
"It's going to be almighty hard," he said sadly to the turtle. "I hope I don't hurt you too much."
When they rescued Captain Long, some four weeks later, about the only things left of that turtle were the carapace, the upper shell, which was inverted and in the bottom of which a few gills of rain-water yet remained, while over it as protection against the sun the gummy lower shell was set. The head, the feet, all the bones, had been sucked and gnawed until there was no taste of sustenance left on them, and very little shape. The intestines had been eaten. There was no blood left, not even a stain. Everything had been licked, again and again.
They had to carry Captain Long to the boat, and later they had to carry him ashore at Providence to Sharpy Boardman's tent. But he was conscious; and they did tell him that the pardon order had been issued by Everard van Bramm himself. Because of Captain Long's condition they did not tell him what the price of that order had been. When he learned the price he wished they had left him on the island to die.
PART ELEVEN. Vengeance Is Mine
The way they fussed about him, it was funny. Each of these ruffians had a price on his head and was an avowed outlaw; yet to see them as they clucked and puttered around Sharpy Boardman's tent—tiptoeing ponderously here and there, forefingers raised—you could think of nothing but a barnyardful of ruffled fat old hens.
Adam Long did not laugh. At first he was too weak, in mind and body alike; and on the fifth day he saw something that made him believe he would never laugh again.
From time to time he asked them about van Bramm. What did the scoundrel seek? Why had he thrown a fit of forgiveness? The whole thing hinged on whether Adam had agreed to join the Brethren of the Coast before he slipped away, and since van Bramm had already taken one side, a side so much to his advantage, and since there were no vdtnesses save Adam himself to gainsay him, why should he switch? He might have supposed, as most of them had, that Captain Long already was dead; but even then where would be the profit in fetching back the corpse of a man whose friends were his, van Bramm's, most dangerous enemies? Everard van B. was no fool. He must have been paid to do what he did. What had the price been?
They evaded the question so querulously put. They were forthright men ordinarily, blunt, and not given to delicacy of feeling; yet they waxed embarrassed and strove to change the subject whenever Adam asked who had paid, and with what, for his return. Nor could Adam persist, angry though he was. He hadn't the strength.
Once when he thought that he was dying—more definitely and immediately, indeed, than he had ever thought this while on the key—he begged them to take him to Tarpaulin Hall, so that he could look again at the place where he and his love had been happy. They side-stepped this request, turning their heads away, mumbling something. He raged, or tried to, in a voice he couldn't raise above a whisper. It was useless. They pretended that they did not understand; and after a while he fell back, sobbing.
Again, clearer, though still pitifully weak, he demanded that Mistress Treadvvay be notified that he was alive. They could surely get word to her through Walter's. He was very earnest about this, sitting up and staring hard at them. They nodded, averting their heads. They muttered that the lady would learn, sure.
In all other matters they were attentiveness itself, fairly fawning upon him. He was never alone. They crowded into the tent, plaguing his self-appointed nurses with requests to be allowed to speak to him, even just to look at him. He was a hero, no doubt of it. He was the man who, in a vessel of his own designing, and with one of his booms a jury at that, had given them the chanciest chase in the history of the settlement; who had killed Major Kellsen; who had lordily instructed Captain van Bramm to wait; who'd slipped away under the fire of the fort's cannon, only to return alone of his own free will; and who, finally, had survived for more than a month an ordeal that would have killed any other man inside of three days. The makings of a myth were here; and the pirates of Providence, always childishly fascinated by miracles, took up the tale with avidity.
It came out soon enough what they wanted of him. Here was his revolt, ready-made. Hatred of van Bramm had reached a new high. Those pirates who had been sent on a trumped-up mission in order that they might be absent when their friend Captain Long was tried, back now, resented this; and they and others sought somebody who would lead them against the chief. The colony indeed seethed with dissatisfaction. Its financial affairs were not going well. Booty there was, but truly useful supplies were scarce. There were fewer women, fewer merchants. The buyers and sellers were clearing up their books and on one excuse or another sailing away. They were the ones who caused the camp to function. The complaint of the corsairs themselves, who didn't understand matters economic, was that van Bramm, the dirty whoreson, was snatching too big a share of the spoils. This, they thought, explained everything. And the logical way to cure this was to kill van Bramm.
The man, however, would take some killing. He wasn't an ant you could step on. The disaffected, having seen him in action, were not afraid of their chief, but they were wary. They wished to be sure of themselves—sure, that is, that they were properly led—before they started. One misstep was all you were allowed on Providence.
Adam shook a groggy head, refusing to discuss this subject. It scarcely made sense to him, the way he was.
Here was no fever, yet it was like fever. His body was not hot, he didn't sweat, but things were blurred in his vision, having a tendency to seem very far away, or, less often, startlingly close at hand. Voices reached him as though from a great distance. He was incredibly weak. They had to feed him with a spoon.