The Petty Officer grinned, and replied, 'Aye, aye, Sir. We'll stand by, and to hell with the Portuguese should they prove troublesome.'
On boarding the Nunez, Roger found a number of the gentry of both sexes strolling round the deck, taking the evening air. De Pombal was nowhere to be seen, but he soon spotted Lisala and her duenna. Directly Lisala caught sight of him, she came hurrying over with Dona Christina to the place where he was standing, beside the bulwark amidships.
Gravely Roger said, 'I am come as I promised to wish you a pleasant voyage, and to hope that in Brazil you will find happiness.'
With equal gravity she replied, 'That was kind of you; but it will do nothing to heal my broken heart. Will you not, at this eleventh hour, change your mind and accompany me?'
He shook his head. 'No, dear Lisala, my mind is set. But will you not change yours and let me make a home for you in England?'
As he spoke, he moved a little sideways, so that he would be able to seize her the more easily, heave her over the low bulwark, shout to the Petty Officer below to be ready to break her fall, then drop her down into the boat.
At that moment she, too, moved, and away from the bulwark, as she said, 'Alas, I cannot bring myself to it. But before we part, come below and we'll drink a glass of wine together, to some future love that may expunge from our minds the grief we now feel.'
For a moment Roger hesitated; then, feeling certain that she would come on deck again to see him off, agreed.
Dona Christina, hitherto knowing nothing of their passion for each other, had been staring at them with startled disapproval. As they turned away to go below, Lisala snapped at her, 'Remain here, old woman, and keep a brace upon your tongue, or I'll claw your eyes out.'
Leaving the duenna mouth agape and petrified with fear, Roger followed Lisala down the after ladder. She led him along a passage and, pointing to two adjacent doors, said, 'That is Papa's cabin and that is Aunt Anna's.' Turning into a narrower passage, she added, 'They are quite roomy and I could have had a similar one next to Papa's, but I would have had to share it with my sanctimonious old duenna; so I preferred a much smaller one along here.'
Unlocking a door, she motioned him into what was no more than a slip room, measuring about seven feet by four. It had a single bunk, beneath which Lisala's trunks were stowed. Above the bunk were cupboards. From one of them she took two china mugs half full of wine. Handing him one, she smiled.
'This was the best I could do. Knowing you intended to come aboard to bid me farewell, I purloined it from a bottle that Papa opened last night.'
Raising their mugs, they drank to each other in silence. As Roger swallowed, then lowered his mug, he asked. 'What is this wine? I don't recognise it.'
She shrugged. 'I have no idea. Papa could bring only the oldest wines from his cellar, so it is probably something very rare. But drink up. We dare not linger here for long, and I want to carry away a last memory of your loving me.'
Quickly they finished the wine and set aside the mugs. Lisala gave him a gentle shove and whispered, 'Lie down on the bunk, my love. I wish to play the man and have a glorious ride on you.' Two minutes later, they were locked together. When their first ecstasy was over, she made no move to clamber off him, but insisted that they should enjoy another. Its consummation was delayed, because Roger was feeling an unusual weakness in his limbs. When he did at length achieve it, she still did not get up, but lay, her mouth glued to his, kissing him fiercely.
Several more minutes passed before she withdrew her arms from round his neck, rolled off the bunk and quickly adjusted her lower garments.
He made to rise, but was seized with giddiness. With a sudden laugh, she slipped out of the cabin. Calling to her in a husky voice, he managed to throw his legs over the side of the bunk. Then he heard the key turn in the lock.
Staggering to his feet, he lurched towards the door, stumbled, fell against it, managed to reel back to the bunk and collapsed. Two minutes later he was out cold.
When he came to, it was pitch dark. He had a splitting headache and a frightful taste in his mouth. For some moments he could not imagine where he was. Then the motion of the ship ploughing through the waves told him that he was at sea. Memory flooded back. With bitter fury he realised that Lisala had got the better of him. He was on his way to Brazil.
The Ghastly Journey
On realising what had happened to him, Roger's rage knew no bounds. That a man such as himself, who had few equals in experience of plots and the taking of subtle measures to achieve his secret ends, should have been tricked and kidnapped by a girl was a terrible blow to his amour propre. Yet, after a while, his resentment on that head was slightly lessened by his sense of humour, causing him to sec the funny side of it.
There remained the fact that he was being carried off to Brazil; and that was no laughing matter. For some minutes he wondered whether he could still evade such an unwelcome prospect. British warships would, he felt certain, be escorting the Portuguese flotilla for at least the first part of the voyage and, if he could succeed in geting himself transferred to one of them, he would escape making this most undesirable journey. But this was a Portuguese ship. She must now be well out at sea and, the weather being roughish, it seemed very improbable that any boat's crew would agree to take the risk of transferring him from the Nunez to a British frigate.
Jumping up from the bunk, he beat hard with his fists on the cabin door, hoping to attract attention. But the groaning timbers of the ship partially muffled his hammering and, apparently, no-one heard it. Hunger now added to his unhappy state and further hours dragged by while he still sat, in increasing misery, a prisoner on the edge of the bunk.
It was not until six o'clock that the door was unlocked and Lisala stood framed in it. Looking anxiously at him, she enquired, 'Are you greatly enraged at my having carried you off?'
Roger had long since learned that there were times when it paid to show anger, and others when it could do only harm.
In the present instance no display of the fury he was feeling would get him back on shore and, since he was now condemned to a long sea voyage, quarrelling with Lisala could make it even more uncongenial. Restraining himself, he replied with a wry grimace, 'Knowing my feelings about going to Brazil it was a scurvy trick to have kidnapped me in this way. But since it is further evidence of your love for me, how can I not forgive you?'
Smiling, she replied, 'I am much relieved. I am glad, too, not to find you still under the influence of the dnig. Had I done so, I should have been terrified that I had given you too much. I took it from Papa's medicine chest, and had to guess at the dose. It now remains for us only to secure my papa's acceptance of your having smuggled yourself aboard to accompany me.'
'Smuggled myself?' Roger repeated with a frown.
'Why, yes. I'd not dare confess to having locked you in my cabin. We must say that, out of love for me and without my knowledge, you hid yourself and sailed as a stowaway.'
'And where, if you please, am I supposed to have spent the night?'
'Where I did, most uncomfortably, concealed between some bales of stores on the lower deck.' As Lisala spoke, she put a hand to her disordered hair and added, 'Just look at the state I am in. And I feel quite dreadful. Please go on deck now and show yourself, so that meanwhile I can unpack some of my things and tidy myself.'